Is Masood Azhar dead? Speculation rife over JeM chief's whereabouts

Days after Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar is "unwell", several unconfirmed reports on Sunday claimed the dreaded terrorist is dead.

Masood Azhar

NEW DELHI: Days after Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar is "unwell", several unconfirmed reports on Sunday claimed the dreaded terrorist is dead. Intense speculation made the rounds about Masood Azhar's whereabouts with a report of him getting killed in the bombardment by Indian Air Force (IAF) on a terror camp in Balakot going viral, but there was no confirmation from any authoritative sources. Amid growing pressure to show the damage caused by IAF's precision bombing on the Jaish-e-Mohammed training facility, India is contemplating releasing evidence in the days to come to silence those doubting the impact. The IAF had declared that disclosing proof of the air strike impact was a call to be taken by the government even though electronic evidence gathered by radar images was sufficient to establish the damage caused to the structures. India carried out air strikes against the biggest training camp of JeM in Pakistan's Balakot. In the operation, at least 350 JeM terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for suicide attacks were eliminated. Though, Pakistani establishment remaining in denial mode over the IAF strikes, a video clip of Masood Azhar's brother Maulana Ammar had surfaced on Saturday where he can be heard accepting that the Balakot camp had taken a hit. The recording is said to be from a public function organized in Peshawar after the air strike. Another report from Islamabad said the JeM founder was undergoing dialysis in a Pakistan army hospital. Reports claimed that after getting seriously injured in the air strike, Masood Azhar died in a hospital. On Friday, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi admitted that Masood Azhar was in Pakistan and was "unwell". "He is in Pakistan, according to my information. He is unwell to the extent that he can't leave his house, because he's really unwell," Qureshi told CNN when asked about Azhar. The Jaish-e-Mohammad chief was a close associate of Osama bin Laden, terror motivator in several African countries and also known by many as the Pakistani cleric who brought jihad into the religious discourse at mosques in the UK. The influence of the 50-year-old overweight terrorist mastermind was so huge that, when he was released by India in exchange for freeing the hijacked Indian Airlines aircraft IC-814 on December 31, 1999 in Kandahar, Laden hosted a banquet for him the same night. Azhar was part of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen or Harkat-ul-Ansar, when he was arrested in 1994 in India for spreading hate. Azhar formed Jaish-e-Mohammad after his release in 1999 when Indian Airlines flight IC 814 was hijacked and taken to Kandahar. Since then, the JeM has been involved in terror attacks in the country. (With inputs from IANS)