In a rare admission, a Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) commander has acknowledged that Indian forces “tore into pieces” the family of terror mastermind Masood Azhar during strikes in Bahawalpur under Operation Sindoor.
“Embracing terrorism, we fought Delhi, Kabul and Kandahar for protecting the borders of this country. After sacrificing everything, on May 7, Maulana Masood Azhar’s family was torn apart by Indian forces in Bahawalpur,” Kashmiri said in Urdu, as armed men stood in the background.
Operation Sindoor: India’s response to Pahalgam terror attack
The strikes, as part of Operation Sindoor, were carried out by the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force in retaliation to the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam that killed 26 civilians, mostly tourists.
Indian forces struck nine terrorist facilities in a coordinated overnight operation. The targets included deep-rooted infrastructure of JeM, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizbul Mujahideen in Bahawalpur, Kotli and Muridke.
Colonel Sofiya Qureshi told reporters that the strikes did not target any military installations and that “no civilian casualties” were reported by India. Pakistan, however, claimed 26 people were killed and 46 others injured across six of the nine sites.
Bahawalpur: The heart of JeM
Bahawalpur, Pakistan’s 12th largest city, was among the key targets because it houses JeM’s operational headquarters at the Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah, also called the Usman-o-Ali campus. JeM, founded in the early 2000s by UN-proscribed terrorist Masood Azhar, has been responsible for numerous deadly attacks in India over the past two decades.
Following the strikes, Pakistani media cited Azhar himself as acknowledging that 10 of his family members were killed in Bahawalpur, including his elder sister, her husband, a nephew and his wife, a niece and five children. Four close associates were also reportedly eliminated.
According to reports, among those killed was Mohammad Yusuf Azhar, Masood Azhar’s brother-in-law and a senior JeM figure who played a central role in the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814. He had long been on India’s wanted list, with a Red Corner Notice issued against him by Interpol.
Azhar, also known as “Ustad Ji,” oversaw weapons training for JeM fighters and had been linked to multiple terror strikes in Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan’s denial, India’s warning
Islamabad has continued to deny any role in cross-border terrorism. Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari earlier claimed Pakistan was “unaware” of Masood Azhar’s whereabouts, adding that his country would be “happy to” arrest him if India provided evidence he was on Pakistani soil.
But New Delhi has maintained that Operation Sindoor was a legitimate act of self-defence after the Pahalgam massacre. Officials stressed that the mission was aimed only at terror infrastructure and not Pakistani civilians.
In a viral video circulating on social media, JeM commander Masood Ilyas Kashmiri is heard recalling the May 7 assault, describing how Indian forces stormed their hideout.
