Life-threatening ailment cripples Masood Azhar
NEW DELHI: Masood Azhar, the chief of the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), has been confined to bed with a life-threatening condition, Indian intelligence officials said, and the proscribed Deobandi outfit is now operationally divided between his two younger brothers, Rauf Asghar and Athar Ibrahim, who continue to carry out jihadist attacks on India and Afghanistan.
Azhar, 50, is suffering ailments that have affected his spinal cord and kidney, the officials added, declining to elaborate.
The intelligence officials, who asked not to be identified, said Azhar is believed to have been treated for his spinal cord and renal condition at the Combined Military Hospital at Muree in Rawalpindi, and that the jihadist leader has been bedridden for at least a year and a half. Indian diplomats HT spoke to could not confirm Azhar’s illness but said the terrorist leader, whose designation by UN as global terrorist (a move sponsored by India) was blocked by China, had not been sighted in public either in his home town Bhawalpur or anywhere else in Pakistan.
That makes India’s job easier, one expert added. “There is no need for India to give concessions to Beijing over designation of Azhar as global terrorist as the terrorist has been struck with debilitating illness,” said a senior counter-terrorism official.