Pakistan blames 'rogue nation' for killing of Pathankot attack mastermind

Most of the suspects behind the killing of a key aide of Jaish e Mohammed terror group chief Masood Azhar and his two associates have been arrested, the police chief of Pakistan's Punjab province said on Friday, days after the trio were shot dead at a mosque in Sialkot city.

The JeM terror group's leader Shahid Latif, mastermind of the 2016 attack on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, and his security guard Hashim Ali were shot dead by three gunmen while they were offering prayer in a mosque in Daska city of Punjab province, over 100 km from Lahore, on Wednesday early morning.

Prayer leader and close associate of Latif, Maulana Ahad was also hit by bullets and was shifted to a hospital where he succumbed to his wounds on Thursday.

Without naming the country, the inspector general of police (IGP) Punjab Dr Usman Anwar said a "rogue nation and its hostile intelligence agency are involved in executing the terror attack in Pakistan."

"All three shooters involved in this case have been identified and arrested. Other arrests have been made in Sialkot, Lahore, Pakpattan, Kasur and other districts of Punjab," he said.

”This attack was planned outside Pakistan. A hostile intelligence agency sent a person to Pakistan. We have all the records about who is the person who came here, who he met, and even his geo-location. They came here between October 6 and October 9 and executed the plan on October 11.”

He further said that Pakistan's security agencies worked jointly to identify "facilitators, perpetrators, and executors" of the attack and arrested most of them. They will soon be presented before the court with evidence.

Sialkot district police officer (DPO) Muhammad Hasan Iqbal said this was a "targeted killing" and an "incident of terrorism".

Latif, who was arrested in India in 1994 on terror charges, was then put on trial and eventually jailed. He completed his sentence in 2010 after which he was deported to Pakistan.

Shahid Latif, 50, belonged to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and for many years he served as the administrator of Noori-e-Madina Masjid, Daska.

The Jaish-e-Mohammed has been blamed by India for multiple past attacks on its soil, including the Pathankot attack which left seven soldiers dead at a base in the north Indian town.