In a powerful response to the Pahalgam terror attack, India launched Operation Sindoor early Wednesday (May 7), targeting terror infrastructure deep inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The operation, carried out around 2 am, involved coordinated strikes by the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force, employing precision missiles and possibly drones.
Nine terror sites were hit in Muzaffarabad, Kotli and Bagh in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, as well as Muridke and Ahmedpura Sharqia in Bahawalpur, Punjab province.
The strikes on Bahawalpur, the hometown of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar, is seen as important as it shows India’s counter-terror response will not be confined to border areas but also deep inside Pakistan. Azhar, despite being a UN-designated global terrorist, continues to move freely in Bahawalpur and is known to deliver sermons when not under symbolic house arrest.
All about terrorist Masood Azhar
Maulana Masood Azhar, the founder of the banned terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), continues to live openly in Bahawalpur, under the protection of a heavily guarded complex. Despite JeM being officially outlawed in 2002, the ban exists largely on paper, as the group continues to operate training camps.
Azhar, born in 1968 in Bahawalpur, was once a cleric and member of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) in Afghanistan. Arrested in India in 1994 on terrorism charges, he was later released and went on to establish JeM in January 2000 in Karachi. The group, grounded in the radical Deobandi ideology, has since been involved in several major terror attacks in India, including the assaults on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly and the Indian Parliament.
JeM’s main base is alarmingly close to the Pakistani army’s 31 Corps headquarters and a reported secret nuclear facility in Bahawalpur.
Azhar, designated a global terrorist by the UN in 2019, is said to be suffering from kidney issues, limiting his public appearances. He was last seen at a wedding in June 2024. His brother, Abdul Rauf Azhar, and senior operatives Shah Nawaz Khan and Maulana Mufti Mohammad Asghar reportedly oversee training camps with over 300 recruits across Pakistan and Muzaffarabad.
The JeM, or “Army of Muhammad,” continues to espouse a radical vision of integrating Kashmir into Pakistan under Sharia law.