New Delhi:
The BJP has claimed that Abdul Rauf Azhar, the younger brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, was among the terrorists killed as India struck terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir under Operation Sindoor yesterday. India yesterday launched precision airstrikes at nine locations in Pakistan and PoK in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 innocents were murdered in cold blood. One of these locations was the Jaish headquarters in Bahawalpur.
The BJP put out a social media post with Abdul Rauf Azhar’s photo and “eliminated” written on it.
Abdul Rauf Azhar, a most-wanted terrorist, was the mastermind of the hijack of Indian Airlines IC 814 in Kandahar in 1999. He was involved in the Pathankot terror attack and the 2001 attack on Parliament.
In the IC 814 hijack, an India Airlines plane flying from Kathmandu to Delhi with 190 people on board, was diverted to Kandahar and the Indian government was forced to release three terrorists in exchange for the release of the passengers — one of them was Masood Azhar.
A statement attributed to Masood Azhar had said yesterday that 10 members of his family and four of his aides were killed when India targeted Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters, Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah, in Bahawalpur.
“Ten members of my family were blessed with this happiness together tonight… five are innocent children, my elder sister, her honorable husband. My scholar Fazil bhanje (nephew) and his wife and my beloved scholar Fazilah (niece) … my dear brother Huzaifah and his mother. Two more dear companions,” the statement said, saying that those killed have become the guests of Allah.
The statement said Masood Azhar feels “neither regret nor despair” over the deaths. “Rather, it comes to my heart again and again that I too would have joined this fourteen-member happy caravan. Time for their departure had come, but the Lord did not kill them,” it said.
