Who was Naveed Jatt?

Naveed Jatt was a wanted militant, who was suspected to be involved in the assassination of senior journalist Shujaat Bukhari.

Top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander Naveed Jatt, along with another terrorist, were gunned down by security forces in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir’s Budgam district on Wednesday. Naveed Jatt was a wanted militant, who was suspected to be involved in the assassination of senior journalist Shujaat Bukhari.

Shujaat Bukhari was shot dead on June 14 this year outside his office in Srinagar, along with his two bodyguards three motorcycle borne gunmen. According to police, among the attackers were Naveed Jatt and Azad Malik, another another top LeT commander who was killed in an encounter in Anantnag last week.

WHO WAS NAVEED JATT

21-year-old Naveed Jatt was also known as Abu Hanzalla and had been in Kashmir valley for more than six years. He was a Pakistani national from Multan city of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

According to the records available with the security forces, Jatt along with 22 other terrorists infiltrated into Kashmir in 2012 from the Line of Control (LoC) near Athmuqam Farkian area of Kupwara district.

He was only 15 when he crossed the LoC. The militants remained in the forests for six months till 2013. Later, Jatt was sent to Pulwama along with a terrorist Ashiq Lone. The two were equipped with SIM cards and shown how to contact Pakistan based commanders through Skype.

From 2013 to 2014, Naveed Jatt operated in south Kashmir and was involved in several attacks.

Jatt was arrested on September 19, 2014, from Sempora Bijbehara area in Anantnag and was lodged in Srinagar’s central jail. He was charged with murder and attempt to murder. In his interrogation, Jatt revealed that he belonged to a poor family and had several siblings. His father was a truck driver.

He was recruited into LeT to deliver his ‘services’ for the call of ‘liberation of Kashmir’. Jatt had also revealed that he was trained on the use of arms and ammunition in Pakistan’s Muridke, the location LeT headquarters. Jatt had lived and trained in Muzzaffarabad of Pakistan-administration Kashmir.

In February 2018, Jatt along with five other prisoners were taken to SMHS hospital in Srinagar for a medical checkup from the central jail. When a few militants were waiting in the hospital’s casualty section, they fired upon the security guards and fled on motorbikes along with Naveed Jatt.