India on Friday called upon Pakistan to take strong action against Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, following reports that the UN-designated global terrorist delivered a speech recently at a public gathering in Bahawalpur.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said that if the report is correct, then it has exposed Pakistan’s “duplicity” in containing terrorist activities.
“We demand that strong action be taken against him (Azhar) and he should be brought to justice. There has been denial that he is not there in Pakistan,” the ministry’s spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.”If the reports are correct, then it exposes the duplicity of Pakistan. Masood Azhar is involved in cross-border terror attacks on India and we want that strong action be taken against him,” he added.
Azhar was listed as an international terrorist by the United Nations Security Council in May 2019 and India designated him as a terrorist in September 2019.
In India, Azhar has been involved in the 2001 Parliament attack, the 2019 Pulwama terror attack, the attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly complex in 2001 that killed 38 people, another attack in Pathankot in 2016, various terror attacks on BSF camps in Srinagar, Pulwama, Jammu, among other attacks.
India had arrested him in 1994, but was forced to release him in exchange for hostages during the infamous IC-814 hijacking in 1999. He founded Jaish-e-Mohammed after his release.
According to the UN Security Council, Jaish was associated with Usama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida, and the Taliban for participating in the financing, planning, facilitating terror activities.