By – Prakarsh Kastwar
2001 Parliament attack king-pin Masood Azhar under Pak protective custodyAzhar is Pakistan’s jihadi crown jewel, and Islamabad has made certain that the Jaish terrorist is kept safe.
Masood Azhar Alvi, the Jaish-e-Mohammed kingpin who coordinated the terror strike on December 13, 2001, appears to be in the protective custody of Pakistan’s deep state in Islamabad, twenty-two years later. The terrorist, 55, rarely visits to his seminary, Markaz-e-Usman-o-Ali, on the Railway Link road in Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
Azhar, who was charged by the Delhi Police in the 2001 Parliament attack and the Punjab Police in the 2016 Pathankot airbase attack, has used JeM cadre to carry out brutal terror attacks on India, including the attack on the Ram Janambhoomi temple in Ayodhya on July 5, 2005, and the Pulwama attack on CRPF troopers on February 14, 2019. against January 3, 2016, he also directed an attack against the Indian Consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif, Balk, Afghanistan. He was a close friend of Osama bin Laden and Taliban founder Mullah Omar.
Azhar, consumed by hatred for India and the abuse he had from Indian security services while in captivity between 1994 and 2000, has brought India and Pakistan dangerously close to war every time his Deobandi jihadis attacked the Indian interior. However, Pakistani officials have consistently praised the terrorist rather than holding him responsible for terror strikes on India.
After mobilizing Indian armed forces within four days of the Parliament attack, the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee was on the verge of launching an attack in Occupied Kashmir. Meanwhile, the Narendra Modi government responded to the Pulwama attack by striking at the JeM terror training camp at Balakot in KPK on February 26, 2019. Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the ruler of Pakistan at the time, declared Jaish as a terrorist organization and Azhar as a terrorist on January 14, 2002, in response to pressure from outside and the prospect of conflict from India.
But Azhar is Pakistan’s jihadi crown gem, and Islamabad has made sure the Jaish terrorist is kept safe by providing him with security usually reserved for a visiting head of state. This is true even though JeM members and Al Qaeda members participated in two abortive attacks on General Musharraf in December 2003, and the group renamed itself Khuddamul Islam in order to avoid the Pakistani government’s prohibition.
Azhar has given command of the terror group and its front groups to members of his own family in order to retain complete control over the group. Abdul Rauf Asgar Alvi, Masood’s younger brother, is in charge of the terrorist organization’s daily operations. Talha Saif, his other brother, is in charge of JeM’s student branch, Al Murabitoon. Masood’s brother-in-law, Mohammed Yousuf Azhar, is in charge of the terrorist group’s training initiatives.
His elder brother Ibrahim Athar Alvi, who masterminded the December 1999 IC-814 hijacking in order to free Azhar, leads the group’s operations along with Masood’s brother-in-law Maulana Ashfaq Ahmad, who coordinates the Al Rehmat Trust, the main source of funding for global jihad but openly functions as the JeM’s charitable arm.
Despite Pakistan’s international scrutiny for the terrorist actions of jihadist groups, Azhar’s JeM operates throughout the Jammu and Kashmir region with the express intent of striking India and igniting intercommunal conflict within the nation.