New Delhi: Responding to Pakistan’s hiked bounty on 26/11 mastermind Masood Azhar ahead of a review by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Tuesday termed it a “phony” announcement.
“Such gimmicks and hoodwinks by Pakistanis are not new. A state sponsor of terror making phony announcements is of no consequence. They must take actual action,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a regular press briefing.
His comments came a day after Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) raised the reward for any information that might lead to the capture of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) founder Masood Azhar by PKR 2 million and listed him as a fugitive in its latest Red Book of most wanted terrorists. The current reward is PKR 7 million.
The move comes ahead of the FATF plenary scheduled for October and is being seen as Pakistan’s bid to avoid being placed back on the watchdog’s grey list.
Pakistani authorities have claimed since 2021 that Azhar left the country and fled to Afghanistan. But, the Taliban in Kabul last week rejected Islamabad’s assertion and claimed that it would not allow Afghan territory to be used for attacks against other countries.
Azhar remains wanted in India in connection with several major terrorist attacks, including the 2001 Parliament attack, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the 2016 attack on the Pathankot air base and the 2019 Pulwama bombing.
The FIA’s latest Red Book contains 1,804 people classified as most-wanted terrorists, up from 1,330 in its 2021 edition—an increase of roughly 36 percent.
It also includes people Pakistani investigators have identified as having played roles in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. At least 166 people were killed and more than 300 injured in the attacks. The list names 19 people accused of helping finance, organise or facilitate the maritime operations that brought the attackers to India.
Seventeen of them are identified with photographs and descriptions of their alleged roles. Interestingly, Pakistan removed photographs, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) affiliations and operational details from the entries for two men, Muhammed Khan of Turbat and Abdul Rehman of Bahawalnagar. Those details had appeared in the agency’s 2021 list.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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