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Suspicions rise of Indian involvement in car bomb at Pakistani jihadi Hafiz Saeed’s home
- Target and timing of attack, which came as Indian leader Narendra Modi met Kashmiri political parties, sets alarm bells ringing
- ‘This could be a glimpse of the India-Pakistan proxy war in post-US Afghanistan,’ analyst says
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Alarm bells are ringing in Pakistan after a car bomb exploded near the home of jailed jihadist leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed in the eastern city of Lahore.
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Nobody has claimed responsibility for the June 23 attack, which killed three people and wounded 27 others.
Nonetheless, it has fuelled speculation among Pakistan journalists and analysts that the bombing could have been a covert warning to Pakistan from India’s intelligence services against loosening curbs on Saeed’s Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) and other Kashmir-focused militant groups under international pressure, after Indian warplanes crossed into Pakistani airspace in February 2019 to carry out a revenge attack on a jihadist training camp.
“The Lahore attack appears to be more symbolic in nature, a warning of sorts,” said Salman Masood, editor-in-chief of the English-language newspaper The Nation, in a post on Twitter.
Is the attack location a coincidence, or a shot across the bow?
While Pakistani police officials investigating the bombing were initially reluctant to blame India, “the fact that it occurred close to JuD leader Hafiz Saeed’s home looms large”, said Michael Kugelman, senior South Asia associate at the Wilson Centre in Washington. “Is the attack location a coincidence, or a shot across the bow?”
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The JuD chief’s son Talha Saeed, who is being groomed as his successor, was injured in a similar bomb attack in Lahore in December 2019, hours after his father appeared in court to face terror financing charges.
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