Mystery surrounds the sudden hospitalisation of senior Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) ideologue and co-founder Amir Hamza, who was admitted to a military hospital in Lahore on Tuesday under tight ISI security cover.
The 66-year-old close aide to founder Hafiz Saeed was critically injured at his residence, but the nature of the injuries and circumstances are still a closely guarded secret even as he is being treated in Lahore hospital under high security cover of ISI.
The incident comes at a time of visible churn within Lashkar’s upper echelons, fuelling speculation over possible internal strife or targeted eliminations. Hamza, a long-time associate of Hafiz Saeed and Abdul Rehman Makki, was a core member of Lashkar’s central committee and served as the group’s chief propagandist and head of its publications wing.
Telegram channels affiliated with Lashkar supporters referred to the incident on Tuesday evening, urging members to stay strong during the “crisis” and maintaining that it was simply an “accident”.The incident occurred just three days after Abu Saifullah, a senior Lashkar operative and key recruiter, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Pakistan.
However, the information emanating from reliable quarters confirmed that Hamza, one of LeT’s 17 founding members, sustained injuries in an accident at his home, even as several social media posts claimed he had been shot. This development comes shortly after Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Razaullah Nizamani, also known as Abu Saifullah, was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Pakistan’s Sindh province.
Nizamani, who was reportedly under government-provided security, was attacked near a road crossing in Matli, Sindh, shortly after he left his home that day.He played a significant role in several major terror attacks in India, including the 2001 assault on a CRPF camp in Rampur, the 2005 attack on the Indian Science Congress in Bangalore, and the 2006 strike on the RSS headquarters in Nagpur.
Hamza, declared a global terrorist by the United States in 2012, was known as the ideological engine behind Lashkar’s narrative operations.A former Afghan jihadi, he gradually shifted from field operations to overseeing Lashkar’s propaganda, authoring books like Qafila Da’wat aur Shahadat (Caravan of Proselytising and Martyrdom) and Shahrah-e-Bahisht (The Road to Paradise). He also served as the editor of Lashkar’s weekly newspaper and contributed extensively to its radical literature.
In 2018, following financial crackdowns by Pakistani authorities on LeT-linked charities Jamaat-ud-Dawah and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, Hamza reportedly distanced himself from the group. He later founded a splinter outfit, Jaish-e-Manqafa, which allegedly continued to carry out militant operations, including in Jammu and Kashmir.
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