India’s precision military offensive Operation Sindoor reportedly neutralised nearly 100 terrorists, including high-value targets such as Abdul Rauf Azhar, the operational commander of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and a key figure in global jihadist networks. According to several reports, Azhar’s elimination is seen as a symbolic moment of justice for the family of slain American-Jewish Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002.
Azhar played a central role in the 1999 IC-814 hijacking, which forced India to release Omar Saeed Sheikh — a British-Pakistani Al-Qaeda operative who later masterminded the kidnapping and brutal killing of Pearl. While Azhar’s group was not directly involved in Pearl’s abduction, he enabled the release of Sheikh, setting off a tragic chain of events.
India’s strikes targeted terror headquarters in Bahawalpur and Muridke, long believed to be the operating bases of JeM and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), respectively. Bahawalpur, the JeM stronghold, was reportedly hit with surgical precision, destroying command centres and eliminating top operatives.
Daniel Pearl’s father, Judea Pearl, acknowledged the development in a post on X and said, “India’s military forces have eliminated Abdul Rauf Azhar, a man described as responsible for the kidnapping and murder of my son.”
When a question related to this was asked during today’s (May 9) press briefing, Ministry of External Affairs’ Secretary Vikram Misri said that Jaish-e-Mohammed was in some way directly or indirectly responsible for the death of Pearl.
“Jaish-e-Mohammed was in some way directly or indirectly responsible for the death of Daniel Pearl. But the real connection is through Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British Pakistani jihadi who was held in India but was finally released in 2000 and he was the one who lured Daniel Pearl to his eventual murder. So these are all obviously connected figures, connected individuals, connected institutions. The attack on Bahawalpur, on that facility of Jaish-e-Mohammed in Bahawalpur, is, I would imagine, a fitting part of this unfortunate incident…” said Vikram Misri.