2001 Parliament attack king-pin Masood Azhar under Pak protective custody

Azhar is the jihadi jewel of Pakistan and Islamabad has ensured that the Jaish terrorist is kept out of harm's way.

Twenty-two years after the dastardly attack on the Parliament on December 13, 2001, Masood Azhar Alvi, the Jaish-e-Mohammed king-pin who orchestrated the terror strike, apparently lives under protective custody of Pakistani deep state in Islamabad. The 55-year-old terrorist seldom travels to his seminary, Markaz-e-Usman-o-Ali, on Railway Link road in Bahawalpur Pakistan.

Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar.

Charge-sheeted by the Delhi Police in 2001 Parliament attack and 2016 Pathankot airbase attack by the Punjab Police, Azhar has used JeM cadre to mount brutal terror attacks on India, including attack on Ram Janambhoomi temple in Ayodhya on July 5, 2005 and the Pulwama attack on CRPF troopers on February 14, 2019. He also directed an attack on the Indian Consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif in Balk in Afghanistan on January 3, 2016. He was a close ally of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and Taliban founder Mullah Omar.

Consumed by hatred for India and the treatment meted out to him by Indian security forces while in custody between 1994-2000, Azhar has brought India and Pakistan nearly to war every time his Deobandi jihadis have attacked the Indian hinterland. But the Pakistani authorities have always feted the jihadi rather than holding him accountable for terror attacks on India.

While the Narendra Modi government retaliated to Pulwama attack by hitting at JeM terror training camp at Balakot in KPK on February 26, 2019, the NDA government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee was on the verge of launching an attack in Occupied Kashmir after mobilizing Indian armed forces within four days of the Parliament attack. It was under the Indian threat of war and international pressure that Azhar was designated as a terrorist by Pakistan on January 14, 2002 and Jaish a terrorist group by the then Pakistani dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf.

However, Azhar is the jihadi jewel of Pakistan, and Islamabad has ensured that the Jaish terrorist is kept out of harm's way by giving his security which is normally given to a visiting head of state. This is despite the fact that in December 2003, JeM cadre along with Al Qaeda cadres were involved in two unsuccessful attacks on General Musharraf and to defy the ban imposed by Pakistan government, the group changed its name to Khuddamul Islam.

In order to maintain full control over the terror group, Azhar has placed his close family members in charge of the group and its front organizations. Masood’s younger brother Abdul Rauf Asgar Alvi runs day to day affairs of the terrorist group. His other brother Talha Saif is head of Al Murabitoon, the student wing of JeM. Mohammed Yousuf Azhar, Masood’s brother in law, is head of training activities of the jihadi group. His older brother Ibrahim Athar Alvi, the man orchestrated the IC-814 hijacking in December 1999 to free Azhar, is the operational head of the group with Maulana Ashfaq Ahmad, another brother in law of Masood, the coordinator the Al Rehmat Trust, the principal fund collector for global jihad but overtly operates as a charity wing of the JeM.

Even though Pakistan is under global scanner for terror activities of jihadists groups, Azhar’s JeM is active across the Jammu and Kashmir sector with the sole purpose to hit India and cause communal strife in the country.