Riaz Basra (1967 – 14 May 2002) was, with Akram Lahori a.k.a. Muhammad Ajmal and Malik Ishaq, a founder of the militant organization Lashkar-e-Jhangvi during 1996. Career Riaz Basra was born to Ghulam Muhammad and Jalal Bibi in Chak Chah Thandiwala, Sargodha, in 1967. He studied at madrassas in Lahore and Sargodha before joining the political party Sipah-e-Sahaba in 1985. Basra allegedly fought in the Afghan War on the mujahideen side, receiving a bullet wound in the leg. Among his objectives was the establishment of a Sunni Islamic Emirate in Pakistan and the declaration of Shias as non-Muslims. In 1988, he had also tried his luck, unsuccessfully, for an assembly seat from Lahore, Punjab. Contesting against Nawaz Sharif and winning 9000 votes, the same year he was also made the central-secretary (broadcast and publications) of the SSP. Basra was alleged to be involved in killings of hundreds of Shias, including Shia doctors, policemen, lawyers, in killing Iranian diplomat Sadiq Ganji in 1990 and for killing the Shia leader Syed Sikandar Shah, and a deadly attack on a gathering at a Shia cemetery in 1998, in an assassination attempt on Nawaz Sharif in 1999, besides being accused of several bank heists. He was arrested in 1992 and sentenced to death for killing Ganji, but escaped from prison in 1994. Basra was also alleged to be involved in killing the Imamia Students Organization leader Dr Muhammad Ali Naqvi in 1995, Sargodha commissioner Syed Tajammal Abbas in 1996, and in killing Gujranwala SSP Muhammad Ashraf Marth in 1997. In 1996, Basra broke from Sipah-e-Sahaba to form his own anti-Shia organization Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The organization takes its name from the deceased founder of Sipah-e-Sahaba, Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, who was killed in a bomb attack by an unknown assailants believed to be sponsored by Shia group on 23 February 1990. On one occasion, Basra is believed to have coerced the Punjab Chief Minister into easing police pressure on his group. He had demonstrated his ability to penetrate the CM's security by having himself photographed with the CM without his knowledge. On another occasion, he had got himself photographed with Nawaz Sharif in a similar fashion, and sent the photo to Sharif's office. Death Basra had a bounty of Rs. 5 million on his head and when he was killed, reportedly in a shootout in May 2002, in Kot Choudhary Sher Muhammad Ghalvi, Dokota, a Shia village