A Jaish-e-Mohammad militant, who was named as an accused in the 2016 Pathankot attack, and his associate were killed in an attack by unknown gunmen in Pakistan’s Sialkot early on Wednesday.

Sialkot police have called it a “terrorist” attack.

Reports said three unidentified gunmen barged into a mosque where worshippers were offering pre-dawn prayers and opened fire at Jaish militant Shahid Latif and his associate Hashim. They were killed while another person was injured.

Over half a dozen militants linked to Kashmir jihad and Khalistan have been killed in a spate of attacks in Pakistan in recent months, leading to speculation of a “shifting battleground” against the militants.

The fresh killings have come weeks after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed to have evidence about India’s involvement in the June killing of Khalistani separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar. India has dismissed these allegations as “absurd” and “motivated”.

Sialkot police chief Hasan Iqbal told reporters on Wednesday that Latif and Hashim were killed inside Noor Masjid in Mandaiki Goraya village at Daska in Punjab’s Sialkot district during Fajr prayers.

“Unknown gunmen opened fire (inside the mosque). It is definitely a target killing. We are treating it as terrorism,” he said.

“Shahid sahab was facing a security threat. He would position himself based on that.”

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had named Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and three others, including Latif, as accused in the attack on the Indian Air Force base in Punjab’s Pathankot in June 2016.

Seven security force personnel and a civilian were killed in that attack, which lasted for days. Four militants involved in the attack were also killed.

The NIA claimed Latif and his associate Kashif Jan had guided, equipped and launched the four militants who carried out the attack.

Latif was a resident of Pakistan’s Gurjanwala. He was arrested in 1994 in Jammu and Kashmir in a militancy case, put on trial and eventually jailed. Jaish had reportedly sought his release, along with some others, in 1999 after they hijacked the Indian Airlines flight IC-814. The Vajpayee government had released Jaish chief Azhar and some other militants in exchange for the hostages but Latif’s release did not fructify.

Former Jammu and Kashmir police chief S.P. Vaid said Pakistan, a “once safe haven for terrorists”, had become their “graveyard”. Vaid said Latif had infiltrated into Kashmir in 1993 and was arrested in 1994. “He was undergoing sentence in Kot Balwal with other terrorists, including Jaish chief Azhar Masood, whose release I had personally supervised during ‘99 hijacked Flight IC-814 in Kandahar,” Vaid posted on X.