At least 10 family members and four aides of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, a UN-designated global terrorist, were killed in the military action conducted by the Indian Armed Forces in the Bahawalpur region of Pakistan.

A letter, said to be issued by Masood Azhar, claimed that those killed included his sister, her husband, nephew, niece and others, reported Wion News.

Indian news agency UNI reported 14 people were killed in the Indian attack on the Markaz Subhan Allah, in Bahawalpur, known as the operational headquarters of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, and used for hosting cadre training sessions.

Who is Masood Azhar?

The blue-eyed boy of Pakistan’s spy agency ISI, who formed the JeM in 2000, had masterminded several terror/suicide attacks on India that includes the 2001 Parliament Attack and the recent Pulwama bombing in February which led to the death of over 40 Indian soldiers; both incidents had pushed India and Pakistan to the brink of a full-blown war.

His Jaish-e-Mohammed was also behind the Pathankot attack in Jan 2016, killing seven Indian soldiers.

Interestingly, Azhar's dreaded Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) was formed in March 2000 to target India by exporting terrorism to Kashmir just a few months after he was freed from an Indian prison in exchange of the hostages of the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 hijacked on Dec 24, 1999 by the Pakistani terrorist group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen from Nepal and flown to several locations before landing in Kandahar in Afghanistan.

Ban only on papers

Despite his terrorist outfit being banned and Azhar being designated as a terrorist, he reportedly continues to live openly in Bahawalpur.

According to reports, he lives under protection in a heavily guarded complex.

Despite JeM being officially outlawed in 2002, the ban exists largely on paper, as the group continues to operate training camps, as reported by Financial Express.

Operation Sindoor

The Indian Armed Forces in the wee hours on Wednesday launched Operation Sindoor, targeting terrorist camps at nine locations inside Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK), to avenge the Pahalgam terrorist attack, in which 26 people, all men and mostly Hindu tourists, were killed on April 22.

“A little while ago, the Indian Armed Forces launched ‘OPERATION SINDOOR’, hitting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed,” the Ministry of Defence said in a media release after 2 am.

According to a statement by the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the operation was aimed at neutralizing terror camps actively involved in planning and executing attacks against India. A total of nine sites have been hit during the strike.