Sheikh Sajjad Gul, a 50-year-old from Kashmir and leader of The Resistance Front (TRF)—a group linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)—has been identified as the main planner behind the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, which killed 26 people, mostly tourists, according to officials on Wednesday.

Currently hiding in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, under the protection of LeT, Gul (also known as Sajjad Ahmed Sheikh) has been involved in organising several terror activities. These include targeted killings in Central and South Kashmir from 2020 to 2024, grenade attacks in Central Kashmir in 2023, an ambush on police in Bijbehara (Anantnag), and attacks in Gagangir and at the Z-Morh Tunnel in Ganderbal. In April 2022, the NIA declared Gul a terrorist and announced a reward of ₹10 lakh for information about him. An official said that during the investigation of the deadly April 22 attack in Pahalgam, Gul's name came up through certain links and communication traces. The terrorist group TRF had claimed responsibility for the attack.

Following Gul's orders, the group carried out a brutal act in Pahalgam on April 22, where they asked tourists about their religion and then shot 25 of them at point-blank range. A local tourist guide was also killed by the attackers. Sheikh, who was used by Pakistan’s spy agency ISI as a Kashmiri face for the mostly Punjabi-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, studied in Srinagar and later completed an MBA in Bangalore. After that, he took a lab technician course in Kerala. He then returned to Kashmir, where he opened a diagnostic lab and began helping the terror group by providing logistical support. While working as an overground worker (OGW) for the group, Gul was caught by Delhi Police’s Special Cell in 2002 at Nizamuddin Railway Station with 5 kilograms of RDX. It was found that he was planning and surveying locations for a series of blasts in Delhi. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail on August 7, 2003.

After being released from prison in 2017, he moved to Pakistan. There, the ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence agency) chose him to lead a group called The Resistance Front (TRF) in Kashmir. This group was actually linked to the terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), but the ISI used it to make terrorism in Kashmir seem like it came from locals rather than from Pakistan. The TRF was created after the Pulwama attack in February 2019. At that time, Pakistan was facing global criticism for supporting terrorist groups like LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). So, ISI used TRF to hide its role behind a new name. His brother, who was once a doctor at Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital in Srinagar, also became a terrorist in the 1990s. He later moved to Saudi Arabia and then Pakistan, where he is now involved in funding terrorism, working with fugitives in Gulf countries.