Pakistan-based terror outfit, Jaish-e-Mohammed, has for the first time admitted that the family members of its founder, Masood Azhar, were killed during Operation Sindoor—India’s military response to the Pahalgam terror attack.
In a viral video circulating on social media, the outfit’s commander, Masood Ilyas Kashmiri, was purportedly seen acknowledging the losses suffered by the group’s leader.
The video shows Kashmiri flanked by gunmen as he is seen bragging about launching terror attacks in neighbouring countries for Pakistan.
"To protect the ideological and geographical boundaries of this country, we hit Delhi, Kabul and Kandhar. And after sacrificing everything, on May 7, Maulana Masood Azhar's family members were blown to smithereens in Bahawalpur,” Kashmiri said in Urdu in the video.
According to reports, Kashmiri made these remarks at a religious event held in Pakistan's Punjab province on September 6.
Operation Sindoor
The confirmation came months after a statement attributed to Azhar said that India’s attack on the terror outfit’s headquarters in Bahawalpur claimed the lives of 10 of his family members and four close associates.
Those killed included Azhar's elder sister and her husband, a nephew and his wife, another niece, and five children from his extended family.
Pakistan Army generals, senior police officers, and top bureaucrats had attended the funerals of those killed in Indian strikes.
Bahawalpur became the JeM hub after Azhar was released in exchange for the passengers hijacked by another Pakistan-based terror organisation, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, in 1999.
Masood Azhar hiding since 2019
Azhar was designated a global terrorist by the United Nations in 2019, a decade after India approached the world body for the first time on the issue.
The elusive Azhar has not been seen in public since April 2019, and is believed to be hiding in a "safe place" in Bahawalpur.
The group has been involved in a series of terror attacks in India, including the Parliament attack in 2001, the strike on the Jammu and Kashmir assembly in 2000, the attack on the IAF base in Pathankot in 2016 and the Pulwama suicide bombing in 2019.
