New Delhi: The Indian strikes on terror nerve centres of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir under Operation Sindoor on May 7 have neutralised five most wanted terrorists of these organisations, including the mastermind of IC-814 hijacking in 1999, officials said Saturday.
The funerals of these terrorists were attended by senior Pakistan Army officers and police personnel, besides wreaths were placed on behalf of the chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Maryam Nawaz, providing an open testimony of the Pakistan State’s collusion with terrorist organisations, they said.
Mohammad Yusuf Azhar, listed at number 21 in the most wanted list of terrorists prepared by the Union Home Ministry, is the brother-in-law of Maulana Masood Azhar, the dreaded chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).
He was the mastermind of the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane IC-814 in which Masood Azhar was released with two other dreaded terrorists in exchange of passengers and crew members of the Indian Airlines flight that was taken to Kandhar in southern Afghanistan by the terrorists.
Yusuf Azhar was present in the Bahawalpur headquarters of the JeM, where he imparted weapons training to the cadres, with his family members when Indian munitions hit the centre with clinical precision, reducing it to rubble.
Another brother-in-law of Masood Azhar, Hafiz Muhammed Jameel, who was in-charge of Markaz Subhan Allah in Bahawalpur, a massive training centre for JeM terrorists, was also eliminated in the strike, they said.
Jameel was actively involved in the “radical indoctrination” of youth and fundraising for the JeM.
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Mudassar Khadian Khas, who went by the alias Mudassar and Abu Jundal and was in-charge of Markaz Taiba, Muridke, was killed in the strike on the proscribed organisation’s nerve centre by Indian forces.
His funeral exposed the active collusion between the Pakistan State and terror after videos of him getting a guard of honour from the Pakistan Army were circulated on social media.
It was noticed that wreaths were laid on behalf of the Pakistan Army Chief and Punjab CM Maryam Nawaz, who is the daughter of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and niece of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
The funeral prayer was led by Hafiz Abdul Rauf of Jamaat al-Dawah — who is a designated global terrorist — and attended by a serving Lt. General of the Pakistan Army and the Inspector General of Punjab Police in a government school, concrete evidence of the State being hand in glove with the terrorists.
A Lashkar terrorist, Khalid alias Abu Akasha was involved in multiple terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, besides weapons smuggling from Afghanistan.
His funeral, held in Faisalabad, was attended by senior Pakistani Army officials and the Deputy Commissioner of Faisalabad.
Mohammad Hassan Khan, the son of the operational commander of JeM in PoJK, Mufti Asghar Khan Kashmiri, was also eliminated in the strike.
Khan played a key role in coordinating terrorist attacks in Jammu & Kashmir, they said.
