At a sprawling madarsa in Tanda, in western UP’s Baghpat, the students were waiting for their teacher, Mohammad Zubair, gone missing since April 4. Then news came this morning quoting police from the Valley that he was the Varanasi blast mastermind shot dead in north Kashmir’s Handwara.

“His students were waiting for him...He is married with six children...I cannot believe my son was a terrorist,’’ said his father, Mohammad Yousuf, who runs the madarsa where Zubair taught for 15 years.

The police claim he was a top Harkat-ul-Jehad-i-Islami leader who was the ‘‘main organiser’’ of the March 7 Varanasi blasts that killed 20 people. He was shot today in a joint operation by the J&K police’s Special Operations Group, the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force and troops of the Army’s 4 Para.

Police said two others who were along with Zubair managed to escape during the encounter.

Handwara SSP Nitesh Kumar said the militant had been on the run for two weeks in the Valley. ‘‘Zubair tried to flee to Bangladesh but failed because of constant police pressure. So he came to Kashmir and was planning to cross over to Pakistan,’’ said Kumar.

The UP STF said that Zubair’s name first cropped up in the Varanasi blasts probe following the arrest of Phoolpur’s imam, Waliullah, on April 5. Zubair vanished the earlier night. ‘‘Both Zubair and Waliullah worked for the LeT before shifting to HUJI. Waliullah told us that it was actually Zubair who had met him on February 12 near Allahabad and told him that ‘‘ladke aa rahe hain Bangladesh se, Benaraswala kaam karna hai,’’ STF SSP S K Bhagat told The Indian Express.

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