Pakistan Army produces ex-SSG man, disputes India's Budgam terror kill claim

Pakistan Army on Thursday rejected Indian claims that a retired havildar from its elite Special Services Group, or SSG, was killed in a joint operation by security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Budgam district. Indian officials have identified the man killed on Tuesday night as Mohd Asif alias Hashim Moosa and said he was a top Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist.

The Pakistani military responded at a press conference, where Army spokesman Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry presented a man he identified as Asif and said he was alive. The move came after Indian officials said the man killed in Budgam had once served in former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf's security convoy and had been involved in high-profile attacks in recent years.

According to Indian officials, Asif was killed in a joint operation by the Indian Army and other security forces in Budgam district on Tuesday night. They said he had played a role in major attacks, especially over the last three years, a period that saw a rise in targeted ambushes and strikes on military personnel and civilian locations.

Addressing the press conference, Chaudhry said, "After six months of hard work, Musa alias Asif Fauji has been neutralised. Congratulations, applause," in a mocking reference to the Indian claim. He then called forward a man and identified him as Asif, saying he was from Attock district in Punjab. "So here is that superman. You can see this superman. Please, come, my brother. Tell us about these achievements of yours, what all you have been doing," Chaudhry said, referring to claims about his involvement in various terrorist incidents.

The man said some friends had called him a day earlier and told him about reports on social media that he had been killed "by the Indian army in Kashmir". "I was surprised by whatever was happening as I was sitting in my home," he said. Identifying himself as Asif, he said he joined the Pakistan Army in 2000 and later moved to the SSG in 2005. "In 2005, I joined the SSG, performed my duty with courage for 18 years, and retired in 2023," he said. He added that he then worked for a private security company for three years and had been living with his family at his home in Rawalpindi for the past three or four months.

The developments leave India and Pakistan presenting sharply different accounts of the Budgam operation, with Indian officials maintaining that the man killed was Mohd Asif alias Hashim Moosa, and the Pakistan Army insisting that the former SSG havildar it identified as Asif is alive.

With PTI Inputs

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