Lahore: In a significant development, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Pakistan issued Thursday an arrest warrant for banned Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar. He has been charged with terror financing. ATC issued the warrant against during a hearing in a terror financing case instituted by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab police against some members of the JeM including Masood Azhar.
“ATC Gujranwala judge Natasha Naseem Supra issued an arrest warrant for Masood Azhar. It directed the CTD to arrest him and present him in the court. The CTD told the judge the JeM chief was involved in terror financing and selling jihadi literature,” an official told this agency. Azhar is believed to be hiding in a ‘safe place’ in his native town – Bahawalpur.
Azhar is behind the Pulwama terror attack in February 2019 in India which claimed lives of 40 CRPF personnel. Following the attack, Punjab province police had launched a crackdown on terrorism financing. It has arrested six activists of the JeM in Gujranwala, some 130kms from Lahore.
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The CTD said its teams raided the whereabouts of the JeM’s ‘safe house’ and arrested its members. Among those arrested are Muhammad Afzal, Muhammad Amir, Allah Ditta, Muhammad Iftikhar, Muhammad Ajmal and Muhammad Bilal Makki. The CTD has recovered lakhs of rupees from their possession.
“The suspects were collecting funds to finance activities of JeM. The chargesheet against them has been submitted to the ATC in Gujranwala and they are being interrogated,” the CTD said.
JeM had claimed responsibility for the Pulwama terror attack. In May 2019, the United Nations designated Azhar a ‘global terrorist’ after China lifted its hold on a proposal to blacklist the Pakistan-based JeM chief, a decade after New Delhi approached the world body for the first time on the issue.
