New Delhi: India on Tuesday dismissed as “gimmicks” Pakistan’s fresh announcement of a seven million rupees bounty on Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, demanding that Islamabad take “concrete action” to combat terrorism.
Pakistan has maintained the bounty on Azhar, who continues to be listed in the country’s Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) “Red Book” of most-wanted terrorists.
Azhar remains wanted in India for major terror attacks, including the 2001 Parliament strike, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the 2016 Pathankot airbase assault and the 2019 Pulwama bombing.
“Such gimmicks and hoodwinking by Pakistan is nothing new. We have seen similar gimmicks in the past as well,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at his regular media briefing, responding to a question on Pakistan maintaining the bounty on Azhar.
“For a state sponsor of terrorism to make such phoney announcements, we all know how hollow it is. Pakistan must take concrete action and not make phoney announcements. It is of no consequence,” Jaiswal added.
India has for years accused Pakistan of sheltering Azhar, while Pakistan has maintained that he fled to Afghanistan – a claim rejected by Afghanistan’s Taliban government.
For the last few years, Islamabad has claimed that the JeM founder has been operating from Afghanistan.
However, last week the Taliban regime dismissed Pakistan’s repeated claims, with a senior Afghan Foreign Ministry official saying he is not in the country.
Islamabad’s fresh announcement on the reward for information on Azhar came as it faces pressure from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to crack down on terror groups and their leadership.
The Paris-based global watchdog is set to review Pakistan’s anti-terrorism efforts at its upcoming plenary.
Pakistan was placed under the FATF grey list between 2018 and 2022 for its systemic deficiencies in anti-money laundering and its failure to counter-terror financing.
The key reasons included its failure to curb terror financing, particularly to Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba terror networks, besides weak implementation of financial sanctions on UN-designated persons, people tracking FATF’s actions said.
In order to exit greylisting, Pakistan was forced to take a number of steps, including banning JeM and LeT and their fronts and convicting leaders of these outfits. One of the individuals convicted in absentia in 2021 was Masood Azhar. He was designated as a global terrorist by the UN Security Council in May 2019.
In 2022, Pakistan was allowed to exit from the grey list on the condition that APG (Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering) would continue to review its performance on its efforts on some specific points.
One of the points on which Pakistan continues to be under review by APG on the request of FATF was its ongoing efforts to arrest Azhar.
After its exit from the grey list and a decrease in international pressure and spotlight, Pakistan has backslided on assurances it had made to FATF to exit the grey list, the people cited above said.
JeM chief Masood Azhar in Pakistan, bounty act a ‘big fraud’: J&K BJP
Jammu and Kashmir unit of the BJP on Tuesday said Pakistan’s bounty on Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar was a “big fraud”, and urged Islamabad to hand him over to India.
“Islamabad cannot escape accountability by merely declaring one of its most notorious terrorists a fugitive. Masood Azhar has not fled anywhere, and he continues to remain in Pakistan under the protection of the establishment,” BJP spokesperson Altaf Thakur said.
Thakur demanded that Pakistan stop playing games and hand over Azhar to India, where he is wanted in connection with major terror cases.
“Pakistan’s attempt to portray Masood Azhar as a fugitive is nothing but a big fraud and an exercise in deception. He has not disappeared from Pakistan; he is there, and Pakistan knows exactly where he is. If Islamabad is genuinely serious about fighting terrorism, it should hand him over to India instead of issuing statements and announcing rewards,” Thakur said.
Thakur was reacting to Pakistan listing Azhar among its most-wanted terrorists and raising the reward for information leading to his arrest.
The BJP spokesperson said the timing of the move was significant as Pakistan is facing mounting international pressure over its record on terrorism following the BRICS Summit hosted by India.
“The successful BRICS Summit in India has once again exposed Pakistan’s terror ecosystem before the international community. The message coming from the summit is unambiguous – there can be no double standards on terrorism and no safe haven for terrorists,” he said.
