India seeks 4th Interpol notice on Jaish-e-Mohammad founder Masood Azhar

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has started the process of seeking red corner notice from the Interpol on the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad founder Maulana Masood Azhar, who has been designated as an international terrorist by the United Nations Security Council in May 2019.

A voluminous charge sheet has been filed on Tuesday, 25 August, for the suicide attack in Pulwama on the Srinagar-Jammu highway in February last year which killed 40 Central Reserve Force (CRPF) personnel.

“We are approaching Interpol India’s National Central Bureau (Central Bureau of Investigation) and expecting the General Secretariat of Interpol to issue the red corner notice on Masood and two of his brothers—Abdul Rauf Asgar Ali and Mohammad Ammaar Alvi—besides four other absconders very soon”, a senior NIA official in New Delhi asserted.

According to him, Interpol issues a red corner notice only after a court has issued the warrant of arrest.

The NIA’s designated court of the 3rd Additional District and Sessions Judge in Jammu has received a 5000-page challan, with over 8,000 pages of documentary evidence and issued non-bailable warrants of arrest against all the six absconders.

Of the 19 accused, seven alleged facilitators have been arrested and six militants killed in different encounters.

Abdul Rauf, who allegedly played a key role in planning and executing the car bomb blast at Lethapora, Awantipora, on 14 February 2019, is known to be living in Pakistan along with elder brother Masood Azhar and younger brother Ammaar.

Ammaar is known to be operating from Bahawalpur as the organisation’s media head and the editor of its magazine Al-Qalam .

Yet another member of the family, Mohammad Omar Farooq (24), the son of Masood’s brother Ibrahim Athar, is said to have managed and supervised the whole terror operation in Kashmir.

Interpol has already issued red corner notice against Ibrahim Athar for being one of the hijackers of the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 from Kathmandu in December 1999.

Athar is currently known to be looking after JeM’s training and guerrilla operations in Afghanistan alongside liaison with the Haqqani Network.

Omar, along with his Pakistani militant associate Mohammad Kamraan Ali (25), had been killed in an encounter with the Jammu and Kashmir Police and security forces, at Suthsoo Kalaan, in Nowgam area, on the outskirts of Srinagar on 29 March 2019.

According to the NIA, Omar was JeM’s ‘commander’ for the areas falling on the left side of the river Jhelum in South Kashmir (Pulwama-Shopian-Kulgam) while another Pakistani militant, Qari Yasir, was the organisation’s ‘commander’ for the areas falling on the right side of the Jhelum (Tral-Awantipora-Pampore-Khrew).

Yasir, alongwith his Pakistani associate Moosa and a local militant Burhan Sheikh, was killed in an encounter with J&K Police and security forces at Hariparigam in Tral area on 25 January 2020.

Of the six militants involved in the suicide attack and subsequently killed in different encounters, Omar, Kamaan and Yasir were Pakistani nationals. Three more—Adil Ahmad Dar of Gundibagh, Sajad Ahmad Bhat of Mirhama and Mudasir Ahmad Khan of Mir Mohalla Tral—were JeM’s local cadres.

Adil died on the spot as he alone carried out the attack. He was identified from the thumb of his hand, spotted and recovered by an NIA officer which in a subsequent DNA test matched with his father. Mudasir was killed in an encounter at Pinglish, Tral, on 10 March 2019. Sajad, along with his neighbour Tauseef Ahmad, was killed in an encounter at Mirhama on 18 June 2019. One soldier, Anil Jaiswal, also died in the same encounter.

A Pakistani militant, Mohammad Ismael (25), local facilitator Ashiq Ahmad Nengroo (21) and Sameer Ahmad Dar (22) of Kakpora Pulwama, who has gone underground and is known to be an active militant with JeM, besides Masood Azhar and his two brothers, are absconding.

In addition to the six absconders and the six militants already killed, NIA has arrested seven persons allegedly for facilitating the crime.

They include Shakir Bashir (24) and Bilal Ahmad Kuchhai (28) of Hajibal, Mohammad Abbas Rather (31), Peer Tariq Shah (53) and his daughter, Insha Jan (22), of Kakpora, Waiz-ul-Islam (20) of Bagh-e-Mehtab Srinagar and Mohammad Iqbal Rather (25) of Chrar-e-Sharief Budgam.

While the notices issued on behalf of the Government of India are pending against a number of individuals in Pakistan— including Hafiz Sayeed, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Dawood Ibrahim—it is not for the first time that New Delhi is approaching Interpol for a red corner notice on Masood.

Interpol has already issued notices on Masood in three major terror strikes allegedly executed by JeM in India— the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly complex in Srinagar in which over 40 persons were killed in October 2001; Parliament House in which eight Delhi Police and CRPF personnel and a gardener died in December 2001; and, on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot in which seven security personnel and one civilian were killed in January 2016..