London terror: Uncle of Pak-origin attacker condemns nephew

Pakistani-origin ringleader of the London Bridge terror attack Khuram Butt is believed to have been born in the Jhelum area.

The uncle of the Pakistani-origin ringleader of the London Bridge terror attack in the United Kingdom that killed seven people has condemned the horrific massacre, saying he was ashamed of his nephew.

Undated handout photo provided by the Metropolitan Police shows Khuram Shazad Butt.(Metropolitan Police via AP)

Breaking down in tears, Nasir Dar said he felt like the victims were his family, British media reports said. Dar blasted his 27-year-old nephew, Khuram Butt, over his involvement in the sickening terror attack and said he could not understand why he slaughtered seven innocent people.

Denouncing Butt’s extremist ideologies, Dar said: “No religion of the world allows to do this shameful, brutal action.”

Butt was one of three terrorists who drove a van through pedestrians on London Bridge before getting out of the vehicle and launching a knife attack in Borough Market on Saturday.

He said his extremist nephew had only visited Pakistan twice, but that he had noticed a change in the young man.

He said: “When he came he was wearing shalwar kameez (a traditional outfit), he started offering prayers. (He was) very punctual in prayers and he had a beard also. Before that these symptoms were not found in him.”

Butt was gunned down by police just minutes into the massacre on Saturday night, with the bodies of fellow jihadis Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba also seen dead on the pavement after being hit with a hail of bullets.

Officers in plain clothes—believed to be from Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence agency (ISI)—have already raided Khuram Butt’s family restaurant in Pakistan.

Butt is believed to have been born in the Jhelum area. His father, Saif, is believed to have owned a furniture shop in Jhelum before emigrating to the UK in 1988 with his family.

Jhelum lies in a part of Pakistan where many members of the British-Pakistani community originally hail from. The nearby city of Mirpur, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, is known as “Little England” due to its large British-Pakistani community.