Pahalgam butcher linked to posh Pak area
Indian security agencies have zeroed in on India’s most wanted Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander, Habibullah aka Saifullah Sajid Jatt, now operating from Islamabad, Pakistan. Highly credible intelligence and forensic breakthroughs have linked him directly to a string of terror strikes in Jammu and Kashmir, including the deadly Pahalgam terrorist attack of April 2025 that claimed 26 civilian lives, mostly tourists.
Hailing from Kasur district of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Habibullah first infiltrated Jammu and Kashmir in 2005 under the assumed name Salim Langda alias Saifullah.
He established a base in the Yaripora village of Kulgam district and easily mixed with the locals. Known for a prosthetic leg below the knee, he earned the nickname ‘Langda’ among villagers.
In 2007, he married a local woman, Shabbira Kutche. The couple had a son named Umar but Habibullah fled back to Pakistan with his wife in 2007, abandoning his infant son in the village. Investigations have established that Habibullah was already involved in several targeted killings of non-locals during his two-year stay in the Kashmir valley.
Upon returning to Pakistan, he ran a dairy business in Kasur as a front while deepening his LeT ties. He trained regularly about three times a year at the outfit’s Markaz Yarmouk training camp. “In 2012, senior LeT leader Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi elevated him to a key operational role overseeing Kashmir-specific modules. Post-2012, he adopted aliases like Sajid Jatt and Ali Sajid, directing attacks from across the border while heading LeT’s offshoot, The Resistance Front (TRF). He is also described as a close aide to LeT Founder Hafiz Saeed and has been linked to the group’s political front, ‘Milli Muslim’ League’, a senior security official said on Monday.
Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan has housed him in a three-storey yellow-coloured house in Soan Garden, Islamabad, an active LeT command hub shared with other operatives, including Ghulam Abbas alias Samama and commander Huzefa Bakkarwal. Habibullah holds a Pakistani national identity card issued in 2020, listing an address in a posh Islamabad sector. However, central security agencies say Habibullah resides in the Soan Garden location. The Pakistani national identity card with a different address has been issued by the ISI to keep his identity secret.
Meanwhile, investigations and forensic evidence gathered by the Central agencies and Jammu and Kashmir police have established Habibullah’s role in multiple strikes. He was involved in the 2013 Haiderpora attack on security forces, the DKG and Surankot operations, the 9 June 2024 Reasi bus attack in which nine Hindu pilgrims were killed and most importantly in the Pahalgam massacre.
On 22 April 2025, though some reports cite 15 April, terrorists Bilal Afzal alias Faisal Jatt, Habib Tahir and Hanan Zafar alias Hamza Afghani, all Pakistani nationals from Punjab and PoK, struck Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam, killing 26 civilians and injuring 20. The trio was later eliminated in Operation Mahadev.
Recovered mobile phones, forensically examined at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, revealed WhatsApp messages from Sajid Jatt’s number sending precise coordinates via the Alpine Quest App. Devices were traced to LeT-linked sites near Karachi’s Faisal House and Lahore’s Quaid-e-Azam Industrial Estate, sources in security agencies said.
TRF claimed the attack on social media, with propaganda traced to Pakistani numbers and locations including Battagram in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA)’s 1,597-page chargesheet filed on 15 December 2025, has named Sajid Jatt as the main conspirator alongside LeT and TRF, detailing a joint ISI-LeT plot that used only Pakistani attackers to maintain deniability. He is wanted for waging war against India, among other charges.
Security officials describe Sajid Jatt as a hardcore terrorist, who orchestrated civilian-targeted violence in Kashmir. His ability to maintain a low profile while running cross-border operations from a secure Islamabad base underscores Pakistan’s continued support for LeT infrastructure.
Indian security agencies continue to track his network, with the NIA examining links to other outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammed. As India’s most-wanted LeT commander, Habibullah alias Saifullah Sajid Jatt remains a high-priority target, his past in Kulgam now a grim reminder of how Pakistan-based handlers easily embedded themselves in the Valley’s terror ecosystem.
