The wife of a suspected militant killed in an encounter in Lahore, Naureen Leghari, allegedly went missing from her family home in February this year, according to her brother.

Sources in the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) claimed that the woman identified as Naureen Leghari was a student of Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences in Jamshoro, Sindh.

She had disappeared from there a few months ago ‘to join the militant Islamic State group’, the sources said.

A CTD spokesman claimed that a joint team of CTD and intelligence agency men carried out a search operation in the Punjab Housing Society on Friday at around 10pm.

The raiding team was attacked from one of the houses in the locality. The team fired back and an encounter ensued. When the firing stopped, the raiding team entered the house and found Ali Tariq, 32, dead.

CTD sources claimed Naureen had come to Lahore and married Tariq. They added that the woman had physically taken part in the encounter and had engaged police personnel for about an hour.

Afzal Leghari, Naureen's brother, while speaking to DawnNews, confirmed that his sister had been taken into custody by police following a raid conducted by law enforcement agencies in Lahore's Factory Area on Friday night.

He claimed his sister went missing on Feb 10, 2017, and the family had informed the police of her disappearance.

Police informed the family six days later that Naureen had joined the militant Islamic State group, but the family had dismissed the claims as baseless, as they had no reason to believe this to be the case, Afzal said.