New Delhi: Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar has said that 10 members of his family including his elder sister were killed in India’s Operation Sindoor targeting terror camps in Pakistan in the wee hours of Wednesday.
Azhar stated that others killed in his family include her sister’s husband, a nephew and his wife, a niece, and five children in the extended family alongside four of his aides.
Operation Sindoor was launched close to a fortnight after terrorists killed 26 tourists in Kashmir’s Pahalgam, causing global outrage.
The 56-year-old Jaish-e-Mohammad chief, who is designated by the UN Security Council as an international terrorist, was involved in plotting multiple terror attacks in India including the 2001 Parliament attack, 2008 Mumbai attacks, 2016 Pathankot attack and 2019 Pulwama attack.
Despite his presence in the country, Pakistan repeatedly denied having information about him.
Though arrested in India in 1994, Azhar was released after the Air India IC 814 hijack.
It is reported citing a statement by Azhar that JeM headquarters, Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah in Bahawalpur, came under India’s Operation Sindoor.
Calling those killed in the attack as the guests of Allah, Azhar reportedly said that ten members of his family together were blessed with happiness, adding that they included ‘five are innocent children, my elder sister, her honorable husband. My scholar Fazil bhanje (nephew) and his wife and my beloved scholar Fazilah (bhanji) ... my dear brother Huzaifah and his mother. Two more dear companions’.
The terrorist is reported to have said that he had ‘neither regret nor despair’ at having the family members lost but instead said that he too ‘would have joined this fourteen-member happy caravan’.
Inviting people to the funeral prayers, he reportedly said that ‘Time for their departure had come, but the Lord did not kill them’.
India launched 24 precision missiles targeting nine terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir avenging the horrific terror attack on tourists in Pahalgam.
Following Operation Sindoor, Indian authorities said that over 70 terrorists were killed alongside injuring 60 others in the strike.