Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Naqvi said on Monday that law-enforcement agencies suspected “India’s involvement” in the “targeted killing” of ISI henchman Amir Sarfaraz, aka Tamba, just over five years after his acquittal in the 2013 murder of Indian death-row prisoner Sarabjit Singh.
Naqvi said at a presser in Lahore, where Sarfaraz lived, that the fatal attack on him by two motorbike-borne assailants conforms to “a pattern”. “India is suspected to have been involved in four other murders (on Pakistan soil). We await the conclusion of the investigation before making further statements,” he said. There was no response from the Indian govt to the allegation.
Police said Tamba was at home in Lahore’s Islampura neighbourhood when the assailants came calling. They shot him at close range the moment he answered the doorbell. He died of his injuries in hospital. Based on a complaint by Tamba’s brother Junaid Sarfraz, police registered a case against the unidentified assailants. The Punjab govt referred the case to police’s counter-terrorism department, a front for ISI.
Tamba and his alleged accomplice, Mudasir Munir, had fatally attacked Sarabjit at Kot Lakhpat prison in April 2013. Sarabjit was killed two months after India executed Afzal Guru, convicted in the 2001 Parliament attack. Tamba, 45, was unmarried and lived with his brothers. He was a spice dealer and believed to be close to Lashkar-e Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed.
