Masood Azhar, chief of the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), is suffering from a life-threatening condition and has been bed-ridden for over a year, Hindustan Times reported on Tuesday.
Quoting unnamed officials in Indian intelligence agencies, the paper said that Azhar is suffering from an ailment that has affected his spinal cord and his kidneys.
The jihadist leader underwent treatment for the condition at the Combined Military Hospital in Rawalpindi a year-and-half ago, and has been confined to his bed since then. According to officials, the 50-year-old has not been seen in public for a long time now.
Azhar is accused of carrying out several deadly terrorist attacks in India, including one on the Uri military base in Kashmir in 2016 in which 17 security personnel were killed. India has been trying to get him designated as a global terrorist by the United Nations, but China has repeatedly scuttled all efforts.
A veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has repeatedly blocked India's move — supported by the US, Britain and France — to designate Azhar a terrorist under the Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council.
The JeM, founded by Azhar, has already been in the UN's list of banned terror outfits.
India has identified Azhar as also the mastermind of the Pathankot terror attack on January 2, 2016. It has also blamed his brother Rauf Asghar and five others for carrying out the attack in which seven Indian soldiers were killed along with all the six terrorists. He was also behind the 2001 attack on Parliament and the 2005 terror strike in Ayodhya.
In his absence, the JeM is now being run by his two younger brothers - Rauf Asghar and Athar Ibrahim – both who have been operational in the terror outfit for years and who continue to target India and Pakistan.
Athar Ibrahim was behind the hijacking of the IC-814 in 1999 to free Azhar, who was then in custody in Kashmir. Ibrahim is currently handling terror strikes in Afghanistan and Baluchistan from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, according to HT.
The other brother, Rauf Asghar, has reportedly taken over terror operations against India particularly in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
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