New insights reveal Chaudhary Aslam Khan's assassination planned internally, not externally.
Chaudhary Aslam Khan was killed in a Karachi suicide bombing, orchestrated internally by militant groups, not foreign agencies (Photo: File)
KOLKATA: The killing of former Pakistan police officer Chaudhary Aslam Khan in a suicide bombing in Karachi on 9 January 2014 has returned to public focus following his portrayal in the recent film Dhurandhar by actor Sanjay Dutt. Fresh accounts from former militant and security insiders now reinforce long-standing claims that the assassination was an internally planned operation by Pakistan-based jihadist groups, rather than a foreign-sponsored attack as the Pakistan military had claimed in 2017 while attributing his death to Indian intelligence.
Ehsanullah Ehsan, who was a prominent figure within Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan at the time and served as one of its principal spokespersons, told this correspondent after the film's release that the attack was carried out by the TTP faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar. According to Ehsan, Aslam Khan was targeted for his role in what militant groups described as extrajudicial killings and fake encounters conducted during counterterror operations in Karachi.
According to Ehsan, the operation involved coordination among allied jihadist outfits, including Al Qaeda-linked elements, TTP factions, and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi operatives, reflecting the overlapping operational ecosystems that existed among militant groups at the time. Khan was killed at around 4:40 pm when a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a convoy of police cars on the Lyari Expressway near the Essa Nagri area of Karachi. The explosion was so powerful that it hurled the wreckage of Aslam Khan's bulletproof vehicle nearly 20 metres from the impact site, killing two other police officers as well.
The location carried a grim symmetry: the attack took place close to the same stretch of Lyari where Aslam Khan had earlier been entrusted with leading operations against organised criminal networks. The suicide bomber, as per people aware of it, was Naeemullah. His father, Rafiullah, was a resident of Mohmand Agency, a tribal region that at the time functioned as a key recruitment and staging base for TTP factions.
Ehsan's narration was independently corroborated by two individuals familiar with the episodes—a former TTP member and a former Pakistani security official, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. Both confirmed that Aslam Khan was viewed within militant circles as one of the main operational enforcers of illegal killings, making him a high-priority target. They also confirmed that the planning followed a compartmentalised militant structure, with multiple individuals handling discrete tasks that ultimately led to the suicide bombing.
Three years after his death, Pakistan's military establishment advanced a different narrative. In 2017, Kulbhushan Jadhav, an Indian national arrested in Balochistan on allegations of espionage and terrorism, was presented in a video released by the Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations. In the recording, Jadhav was shown confessing that the assassination of Chaudhary Aslam Khan had been sponsored by India's intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, allegedly on the directions of its then chief, Anil Dhasmana.
Former militant and security sources interviewed for this story dismissed the claim, stating that it contradicted both internal militant admissions and operational realities surrounding the attack. One former Pakistani security official said the Jadhav episode followed a familiar pattern in which high-profile internal security failures were externalised by attributing them to Indian intelligence involvement. Ehsan described the Kulbhushan Jadhav narrative as fabricated and said it was retrofitted to override the earlier responsibility claims made by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.
He maintained that Aslam Khan's killing was conceived and executed entirely within Pakistan's militant landscape as retaliation for his prominent role in what militants termed fake encounters. At the time of his death, Chaudhary Aslam Khan was serving as SP CID Karachi and was among the most visible faces of the city's anti-crime campaign. His illegal methods earned him strong backing within Pakistan's security establishment, while simultaneously placing him at the top of militant hit lists.
