Shia outfit announces Rs 5-crore bounty on five terror heads

“And recently al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri announced an India wing of the outfit, following which we called a meeting on September 6 and decided to put a bounty on Zawahiri’s head, and others,” Hasan said.

Also in the list are Mullah Omar, the chief of Taliban, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State (IS).

IS is a Middle-East based Sunni jihadist group which has threatened to demolish all Shia shrines.

Hafiz Saeed, who is on the most wanted list of National Investigation Agency (NIA) for 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, is also on the list, as is Masood Azhar, who was earlier associated with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and now heads Jaish-e-Mohammad.

Azhar was freed by the Indian government in exchange for passengers on the hijacked Indian Airlines flight in 1999.

“For years they have been killing innocent people; they treat humans worse than animals,” said Hasan.

Posters announcing the bounty have come up in Lucknow and are also being put up in some other parts of the country such as Hyderabad, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai,  he said. On being asked how the organisation would collect such a huge amount, he said: “Let them kill someone first.”

“Shias number 6 crore in India and funds would automatically flow once any of these five terrorists is killed,” he said, adding “we hope the message reaches the terrorists through social media.”