On Monday, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi stated that there was evidence of Indian involvement in the Lahore gun attack on Amir Sarfraz Tamba, the person who allegedly killed Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh in Kot Lakhpat prison in 2013. Police officials have reported that Tamba was critically injured in an attack on Sunday when two masked armed men broke into his home in Lahore’s Islampura area and fired multiple shots at him. The victim was rushed to a local hospital, where he was being treated.
When questioned about the incident during a press conference at the Federal Investigation Agency’s regional office in Lahore, the interior minister commented on the reported Indian involvement. He said, “India was directly involved in two to four events like this before in assassinations inside Pakistan. The police are still investigating, but their suspicion is the same as yours. At this time, all evidence is pointing towards them (India). It is inappropriate to say more before the investigation is completed, but the pattern [of killings] is almost the same.”
The attack came days after British publication The Guardian reported that the Indian government assassinated individuals in Pakistan as part of a broader strategy to eliminate “terrorists” living on foreign soil. The Foreign Office had said that the Indian network of extra-judicial and extra-territorial killings was now a “global phenomenon” that required a coordinated international response.
Punjab Inspector General Dr Usman Anwar had earlier commented that any statement about foreign involvement in the Lahore attack would be “premature or too early” at the moment. A high-profile investigation has been launched to determine the motive behind the attack, including the possibility of a foreign government’s involvement. Islampura police lodged a murder case against unknown armed men. Due to the attack’s significance, the Punjab government has referred the case to the police’s Counter-Terrorism Department for investigation.
Tamba was one of the two inmates who had attacked Singh in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat prison, where the Indian was serving a death sentence after being convicted of espionage. He and the other accused, Mudasir Munir, were acquitted in 2018 by a district and sessions court after all witnesses retracted their statements.
Naqvi also downplayed the Bahawalnagar incident from last week. It involved an alleged “face-off” between police and army personnel following the arrest of a serving army official and a supposed decrease in police morale as a result. He said disputes could occur in every home, and there was no reason to say that the entire force was demoralized.
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