You kill two, 20 will be born to take up the cause. How many will you kill?” Maulana Masood Azhar, then 27, asked Arun Chaudhary, deputy director in the Intelligence Bureau (IB), who interrogated him in the high-security Kot Balwal jail in Jammu in the 1990s. Born in Bahawalpur in Pakistan, Azhar was arrested in Anantnag in 1994 after he entered Srinagar from Bangladesh on a fake Portuguese passport. Before that, he stayed near Regent’s Park in London, propagating the activities of Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA), the parent body of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). He used Quran verses, which he knows by heart, to justify jihad in Kashmir.
“The HuA was created on an anti-India sentiment by motivating the youth of the Punjab province of Pakistan against India and blaming it for all their problems, including water shortage,” said Chaudhary, who retired as special director, IB. “Azhar was responsible for sowing the seed that the only way to get Kashmir out of India was through jihad, which propelled Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in the Valley to the next level.”
After Azhar’s arrest, Pakistani militants tried to get him out of jail several times. Once, a tunnel was built to help him and an accomplice—Sajjad Afghani—escape. But security forces got wind of the plan, and Afghani was killed inside the tunnel. A portly Azhar was found stuck in the narrow tunnel. Azhar’s weight became a butt of jokes at the jail. It was then that Azhar told the guards, “You can laugh as much today. But you all will escort me out of jail one day.”
And, he did walk out of jail in 1999, when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government was forced to release three terrorists—Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar—in exchange for the passengers aboard the Indian Airlines IC 814, that was hijacked and flown to Kandahar. Azhar was escorted to Kandahar by defence minister Jaswant Singh and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, then IB chief, in a special plane. “The situation became such that there was no choice during Kandahar,” said A.S. Dulat, former chief of Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW).
On Azhar’s return to Bahawalpur, his stature grew manifold. Thanks to his Kashmir stint, he became an asset to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In 2000, he set up the JeM, the most potent group in the Valley today that claimed responsibility for the recent attack on the CRPF convoy in Pulwama. Adil Ahmad Dar, who carried out the horrific car bombing that killed 40 CRPF personnel, was a mere tool. From the Parliament attack and the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly car bombing in 2001 to the attacks on the Pathankot airbase, the Army brigade headquarters in Uri and the Army base in Nagrota in 2016, the JeM has specifically targeted security forces and upped its prowess each time through suicide missions and vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attacks.
From time to time, the Pakistani establishment has always had its favourite terror outfit, said Chaudhary. “Pakistan’s former dictator General Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif were supported by Lashkar-e-Taiba, so much so that Musharraf openly declared his support to LeT and Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, which drew international attention,” he said. Likewise, the JeM, which was against former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was close to the Taliban. That is why the hijacked Indian Airlines plane was flown to Kandahar and the negotiations carried out by Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar, said Chaudhary. “While the JeM may not have been the preferred group of some political outfits in the last few years, today it is again spearheading the militant movement after lending support to Prime Minister Imran Khan. In last year’s polls, JeM cadres had campaigned for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in the Punjab province,” he said.
Meanwhile, security experts are closely watching Pakistan’s negotiations with the Taliban for the latter to come to the talking table with the United States. Since the US needs Pakistan to do its bidding, there is a possibility that the US may pay little heed to India’s demand for Pakistan to control the JeM with an iron hand.
“There is a lesson to be learnt here,” said Dulat. “If the US can talk to Taliban, why can’t we talk to our own Kashmiri people? No one is talking to Farooq Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti or Omar Abdullah, leave aside the separatists. But I would say, why not talk to the separatists as well? A terrible tragedy has happened in Pulwama and we need to see why it happened.”
The newly appointed ISI chief Lt Gen Asim Munir seems to have already calculated his gains and losses, said an intelligence official. Munir, who was handpicked by Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, is known for his knowledge of Kashmir—he served as the northern area commander. As head of the ISI, which plays an active role in strategising Pakistan’s foreign policy, Munir has started engaging the Afghan Taliban and other militant groups. Intelligence officials said the terror groups sponsored by the ISI have a free flow of funds and weaponry. As seen in the latest string of attacks, sniper guns, M4 carbines and AK-47 rifles are being used by the JeM in Kashmir.
An ailing Azhar, 50, who is under the ISI’s security cover, is running a family business of terror, said an intelligence official. As per the National Investigation Agency’s chargesheet, his brother Abdul Rauf Asghar masterminded the Nagrota attack. Also, while one of Azhar’s nephews—Talha Rasheed—was killed in an encounter in Pulwama in November 2017, another nephew—Usman Haider—was killed in sniper attacks in Tral in October 2018. The CRPF convoy attack was reportedly carried out to avenge the two killings.
But the brutal attack is also reflective of a deep-rooted conspiracy. A video of Azhar shot in Pakistan last year, in possession of intelligence agencies, shows him warning India of dire consequences. “We had warned them [Modi government] not to touch even a hair of [Parliament attack convict] Afzal Guru,” he said. “But Modi remained obstinate. He thought it was some [26/11 attack convict] Ajmal Kasab issue, whom they would hang to death and no one would come to ask.” Even if India has forgotten the atrocities on Kashmiris, the JeM is maintaining a record and will take its revenge, he added. Doval and the security establishment are listening.
