Delhi Police claims that Lashkar-e-Toiba’s PoK-based commander “Abu al-Qama is the man who directs the Indian Mujahideen” in terror plots across the country but the Jammu and Kashmir Police say al-Qama died six months ago.

According to J&K Police, al-Qama was killed in Gujranwala in April this year, a month after he left the Lashkar.

Sources said the Lashkar commander, who had been its India chief, had not been keeping well and was relieved of his charge some time in March. Sources said al-Qama joined his family business, running a cloth shop in Gujranwala. In April, an unidentified gunman, the sources said, shot him in his shop.

Before returning to PoK to become Lashkar’s India operations chief, al-Qama had been operating in Jammu’s Doda, Rajouri and Poonch districts for five years. J&K Police say they had been keeping close tabs on him, often intercepting his satellite phone calls.

“He would use a satellite phone to give directions to his men,” a police officer said. “After losing him for several months earlier this year, we were anxious. We didn’t know what was going on. Then we learnt that he was dead.”

The J&K Police confirmed al-Qama’s death several months ago from sources across the border. The Lashkar commander who replaced al-Qama was Muzammil. According to J&K Police, no militant group in Kashmir has been found to have any link with the bombings in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Delhi.