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MUZAFFARABAD: A young Kashmiri educationist, who had fled India-held Kashmir, was critically wounded in a targeted attack on Thursday.
The attacker, who attempted to flee through a residential locality along a ravine, was apprehended shortly afterwards, and the weapon used in the attack was also recovered, police and witnesses said.
The victim, Arjumand Gulzar Dar, is the principal and managing director of Allama Iqbal Memorial School, an educational institution operating in a rented building along Muzaffarabad’s Western Bypass.
Originally hailing from occupied Kashmir’s Pulwama district, he had arrived in Pakistan in January 2018 for higher studies. He had reportedly married into the family of a post-1989 migrant from his home district around three years ago and is the father of a young son, family sources said.
Hospital sources said Dar sustained three bullet wounds and remained on a ventilator in critical condition.
Police sources said Dar, whose social media activity openly reflected support for the Kashmiri freedom movement, had been facing security threats and was recently provided with two security guards.
According to investigators, he had informed his guards earlier in the day that some guests would be visiting him around noon. When the visitors arrived in a double-cabin pickup outside the school, he went to meet them without asking his guards to accompany him.
As he was heading back inside after concluding the meeting, he was shot by a gunman who had apparently been lying in wait.
Investigators said the assailant fired three shots, causing the victim to collapse on the roadside in a pool of blood.
As bystanders rushed the injured man to a nearby hospital, the attacker fled towards the western side of the busy road. However, a police team led by Saddar SHO Abdul Wajid Alvi quickly gave chase and apprehended the suspect near a ravine.
Video clips circulating on social media showed police personnel forcing the bearded suspect, who appeared to be in his 20s, into a police vehicle shortly after his arrest.
Senior police officials, including DIG Shehryar Sikander and SSP Riaz Mughal, supervised the preliminary investigation at Saddar police station, where the suspect was identified as a resident of Nawababad in Taxila, Rawalpindi district.
One of the school guards told police he had spotted the suspect loitering outside the institution at least twice before the attack.
Investigators added the suspect had checked into a guesthouse around 800 metres from the school on Sunday and spent the next three days surveilling the area.
Law enforcement officials suspect that a hostile foreign intelligence service might be involved in the attack. Soon after the incident, reports emerged in the Indian media that an individual allegedly involved in the 2019 Pulwama attack was killed across the border in Muzaffarabad.
Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2026
