New Delhi: If reports of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar giving a speech in Pakistan recently are true, they would “[expose] the duplicity of Pakistan”, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said, adding that New Delhi demands “strong action” against him.
According to ThePrint, a JeM online forum said that Azhar – whom the Union government seeks in connection with the terrorist attacks in Pulwama in 2019, Pathankot in 2016 and parliament in 2001 – delivered an address vowing jihadist operations against India and Israel.
It reported that while the forum did not say when Azhar gave the speech, an Indian intelligence officer said he likely delivered it from a seminary and mosque complex outside Bahawalpur in Pakistan’s Punjab province late last month.
Azhar also referenced the Gaza war in his speech, as per ThePrint.
When asked at the weekly press briefing on Friday (December 6) for a response on Azhar’s reported speech – described as his first public address in around 20 years – MEA spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said India demanded that Azhar be brought to justice.
“There has been denial that he is not there in Pakistan. What you are referring to, if the reports are correct, then it exposes the duplicity of Pakistan,” Jaiswal said.
He added: “Masood Azhar is involved in cross-border terror attacks in India and we want that strong action be taken against him.”
ThePrint reported that in his recently documented speech, Azhar called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “weakling” and said he would send armed men to Kashmir.
“I am ashamed that a weakling like Modi challenges us, or a mouse like [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu dances on our graves … Tell me, are there not even 300 people who can fight to reclaim my Babri Masjid?” it cited Azhar’s speech as saying.
Azhar reportedly also said that “we will send you all to Kashmir with such powerful guns that all the television anchors will quiver … and ask where these weapons have come from”.
“Fearful rulers who do not believe in the word of Allah and jihad have led us to defeat in Kashmir, Palestine and other Muslim lands,” he was quoted as saying.
The JeM aims to unite Kashmir with Pakistan.
While Pakistan’s government said in 2022 that Azhar was in Afghanistan, the Taliban denied he was in the country.
In 2019, the UN Security Council’s 1267 sanctions sub-committee approved listing Azhar as a global terrorist.
India had released him from its custody in 1999 in exchange for passengers aboard Indian Airlines flight IC814 who were held hostage in Kandahar, Afghanistan by hijackers.
