Pro-Pakistan militant outfit Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen on Wednesday claimed it had assassinated former state law minister Mushtaq Ahmed Lone on September 11 2002.

The confession comes in the wake of the police claiming the involvement of three of their men in the killing, which  Jamiat's commander for Kupwara district, Inamul Haque said is baseless.

In a faxed statement, Haque said the Jamiat and Lashkar-e-Tayiba jointly carried out the attack on the minister last year.

The Jamiat threatened that the slain minister's nephew and legislator Qaiser Jamsheed Lone were next on their hitlist.

Al-Nasireen, which was a little-known militant outfit till then, had then claimed responsibility for the killing.

Haque said the militants who shot dead the minister were still alive and that they lay in wait for the turn of Qaiser (Jamsheed) lone.