New Delhi: Pakistan has formally written a letter to Kabul, asking to locate, report and arrest Maulana Masood Azhar — the founding head of a militant organization Jaish E Mohammad (JeM).
With the condition of anonymity, A top official of Pakistan said, We have written a one-page letter to the Afghan Foreign Ministry, asking it to locate, report and arrest Masood Azhar as we believe that he is hiding somewhere in Afghanistan.
Foreign Office spokesperson when approached, avoided commenting on this development.
The one-page letter also pointed out two different provinces of Afghanistan — namely Nangarhar and Kunar — where Azhar is mostly likely hiding. It is not yet confirmed whether Azhar moved to Afghanistan before the Taliban took control of Kabul or after that.
However, Terrorist Azhar was behind the harrowing suicide attack carried out on a CRPF convoy that claimed the lives of 40 Indian paramilitary personnel in Pulwama in 2019. India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) had also filed a charge sheet against the Pakistan-based chief of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad outfit but neighbouring Pakistan has long evaded its responsibility in handing over the terror accused.
As the United Nations forced Pakistan to take “effective and irreversible” action against global terrorists operating on its soil, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif-led government wrote a formal letter to Afghanistan.
(Vinayak)