Arrest Warrant Issued For JeM chief Terrorist Masood Azhar By Pakistani Court
Dated : 08 Jan 2021 (IST)
The Paris based terror financing watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was successful in pressurizing Pakistan to take measures against terrorists roaming freely in Pakistan and using its territory to carry out attacks in India and elsewhere.
The FATF placed Pakistan on the Grey List in June 2018 and asked Islamabad to implement a plan of action to curb money laundering and terror financing. This was to be done by the end of 2019 but the deadline was extended later on due to Wuhan Virus.
In May 2019, the UN designated Azhar a Global Terrorist only after a decade of India’s approaching them. This was possible only after China was forced to lifted its hold on the proposal to blacklist the Pakistan-based JeM chief.
This Global Terrorist Azhar was listed on May 1, 2019 as being associated with Al-Qaeda for participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing and perpetrating terror related activities.
JeM was in support of Al Qaeda for supplying, selling or transferring arms and related material and even recruiting for them.
Terrorist Azhar is a fugitive released by India in exchange of passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane IC-814 in 1999.
After his release in 1999, Azhar formed the Jaish-e-Mohammed and scripted many audacious terror strikes in India.
Now In a significant development, an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan on Thursday issued an arrest warrant for banned Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar on the charges of terror financing.
The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Judge in Gujranwala Natasha Supra issued the warrant during a hearing in a terror financing case instituted by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab police against some members of the JeM.
The Court directed the CTD to arrest Azhar and present him in the court.
The CTD said its teams raided the whereabouts of the JeM’s “safe house” and arrested its members — Muhammad Afzal, Muhammad Amir, Allah Ditta, Muhammad Iftikhar, Muhammad Ajmal and Muhammad Bilal Makki — and recovered lakhs of rupees from their possession.
“The suspects were collecting funds to finance activities of JeM. The chargesheet against them has been submitted to the Anti-Terrorism Court Gujranwala and they are being interrogated,”
An official said the ATC judge issued the arrest warrant for Azhar on the request of a CTD inspector. Azhar is believed to be hiding in a “safe place” in his native town – Bahawalpur.
Since UN was not taking any action, Indian patience ran out and in response to Pulwama attack India made a deep surgical strike. This promoted UN into action. Pakistan’s Punjab province police had also launched a crackdown on terrorism financing. After Intense International pressure Pakistan then arrested over 100 members of banned militant outfits including the JeM chief’s son and brother. The government also took control of the JeM, Mumbai terror attack mastermind Chief terrorist Haifiz Saeed’s Jamaat-ud-Dawah (uD) and Falahai Insaniat Foundation (FIF) properties including seminaries and mosques across the country.
It was JeM which had claimed responsibility for the Pulwama terror attack that killed 40 CRPF soldiers, So naturally India had to strike. On February 26, 2019 India had launched air strikes on what was said to be JeM’s biggest training camp in Balakot area Of Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Punjab government claimed to have taken over the administrative control of the JeM headquarters – comprising Madressatul Sabir and Jama-e-Masjid Subhanallah – in Bahawalpur. According to the government, some 600 students are studying there and none of them is associated with any banned outfit or involved in any terror activity.
In case of Next Terrorist strike by any of These outfits may lead to strike on terrorist Commanders themselves, no matter where they are hiding.
