‘Eliminated’: BJP claims Masood Azhar’s brother and Jaish leader Abdul Rauf Azhar killed in airstrikes under Operation Sindoor | India News

Younger brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, Abdul Rauf Azhar, is lifeless.

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday claimed that Abdul Rauf Azhar, the youthful brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar and a delegated world terrorist, was amongst these killed in Indian airstrikes under Operation Sindoor.The operation, launched in response to the Pahalgam terror assault that claimed 26 civilian lives, concerned precision strikes at 9 places throughout Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), together with the Jaish headquarters in Bahawalpur.In a social media publish, the BJP launched a picture of Abdul Rauf Azhar with the phrase “eliminated” stamped throughout it.Who was Abdul Rauf Azhar?Abdul Rauf Azhar, lengthy thought-about the operational head of Jaish, was one of many key conspirators behind a number of main terror strikes, together with the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814. The aircraft, with 190 passengers onboard, was diverted to Kandahar, forcing the federal government to launch three jailed terrorists, together with Masood Azhar, in alternate. Rauf was additionally linked to the 2001 Parliament assault and the 2016 Pathankot airbase assault.Rauf Azhar, who turned Jaish’s de-facto leader in 2007, was designated a terrorist by the US Treasury in 2010 for “recruiting operatives and planning attacks in India and Afghanistan.” India had tried to blacklist him on the UN in 2022, however China vetoed the transfer citing lack of proof.