Bangalore: Shahid Bilal, commander of the Harkat-ul-Jihadi, was killed because of professional rivalry, Intelligence reports say.

The news of his death was first heard a few days after the twin blasts in Hyderabad, but the IB believed it was a ploy by their counterparts in Pakistan to mislead the investigation.

According to the reports, Rasool Khan Parti, the man  behind the the Haren Pandya murder, AMTS bombing case and now believed to have planned the recent bombings at Bangalore and Ahmedabad, had eliminated Bilal. 

Rise and fall

Bilal was in charge of India operations, and was gaining popularity in his circles.  He was largely responsible for the re-birth of Simi as he was able to recruit lot of young men to the cause. . He had also mooted the idea of using the SIMI as an executing agency in India as it would resolve the problem of transporting men into the country from the borders.

Bilal's name also figured most prominently in the STF attack, Mecca Masjid and twin blasts all in Hyderabad.

These incidents reportedly propelled Bilal into a different league and over the months, he had become too 'hot to handle'. Bilal then fled the country.

Need to go

Even as HuJI and LeT were dealing with Bilal, the outfits saw the rise of Rasool Khan Parti. Khan rose in the ranks in the both LeT and HuJI. However there was a clear divide between Bilal and Parti and the professional jealousy between the two grew.

As the ISI and the HuJI were already planning to execute Bilal, the terror groups used the rivalry to get him killed .

Killed on bike

IB sources say that reports suggest that Bilal was executed by Parti at Karachi. Reports suggest that Bilal who was riding a motorcycle along with his brother Samad was shot dead by masked men of Parti at Karachi on August 30 2007.

An intercept picked up by the IB from HuJI suggests that Bilal was shot on the head along with his brother.

Following his death a blog run by an unknown outfit put out an obituary calling Bilal as a martyr. The blog said Bilal was not responsible for the Mecca Masjid blasts, but however takes pride for his STF attack.

A terror website says: "Shahids will emerge from every home. How many Shahids can you kill? This coup is the coup of Truth. Defeated you will be in it."

"Proclaim to the enemy: ye may bring more arrows; here we have chests of thousands, if you have enough arrows."

These are some of the  text seen on an 'obituary' for   Mohammed  Shahid alias Shahid Bilal, in a blog at muslimraw.wordpress.com, that is reportedly run by either Huji or Simi.

In the blog, last updated on August 31, 2007, Shahid Bilal was called a martyr. It further went on to say that Shahid Bhai had been falsely implicated in the Mecca Masjid blast and others. "This is nothing but propaganda, lies spread by the police and the administration, so that we Muslims ourselves should turn against the Mujahideen of our religion; and this heinous conspiracy is part of the global crusade against Islam so that we dispute among ourselves and our strength departs."