What the Govt has on Moulana

General secretary of the Harkat-ul-Ansar, Azhar, whose release is now being demanded by the hijackers of flight IC-814, had been sent to India to oversee the merger of two Kashmiri militant outfits, the Harkat-ul-Jehad-Islami HuJI and theJamiat-ul-Mujahideen HuM. By early 1994, their merger as the Harkat-ul-Ansar had been announced in Pakistan but there was silence from the groups in the Kashmir Valley. Masood was asked to sort out their differences and work out an unification plan. Harkat-ul-Ansar changed its name to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen once again after the US declared it as a terrorist group and banned it, police sources claimed.

Moulana Azhar8217;s operation was nipped in the bud by his arrest. Masood had held consultations with HuJI leaders Sajjad Afghani and Amjad Bilal in Srinagar. It was followed up with talks with a group of 18 militants belonging to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. On February 10, he visited Matigund village along with Afghani and one Farooq. On their way back the next day, their car broke down and they were forced to take a lift in an autorickshaw. The vehicle was stopped after a few kilometers at an Army picket and Masood and Afghani were arrested. Farooq escaped after firing at the Armymen.

Azhar was apprehendedunder the Terrorist And Disruptive Activities Act TADA and the FIR registered at Police Station Counter Intelligence, Kashmir. Azhar was produced before Bashir Ahmad Kirmani, the then Sessions Judge, Anantnag, and sent to Kot Bhalwal Jail in Jammu.

Most of the biographical details of the Moulana were obtained after his arrest and interrogation by intelligence officials and the Kashmir police. This is his description in the interrogation report: quot;Medium height, shallow complexion, stout built, round face, protruding belly, eyebrows joined, thick lips, keeps a maulvi beard.quot; He was born in Bhawalpur and after passing the eight standard completed the quot;Almiaquot; examination in 1989 from the Jamia Islamia. Later, he joined the university as a teacher and worked there till April 1992.

Moulana confessed to his interrogators that he was first influenced by the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen HKuM activities at the Islamia and was motivated to join the jehad by Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman-Khalil. Soon afterwards, heattended a week-long arms training camp at Yavar, Afghanistan, but decided against wielding the gun himself. Around 1989 he was persuaded by Moulana Fazal-ur-Rehman to merge his roles of a teacher and a maulvi and become the editor of the HKuM magazine, Sada-e-Mujahid, published from Karachi. He then procured a Pakistani passport it was renewed thrice and began his travels.

Since 1986 and till his arrest he had performed the Umra every year and extensively travelled abroad to raise funds for the Harkat-ul-Ansar. He visited Lusaka and Chipata in Zambia, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom and Mongolia. In December 1993 he went to Nairobi to enlist support for the HKuM8217;s demand of asking Pakistan to withdraw its forces from Somalia, where Pakistani troops were part of the UN forces and were acting as a quot;shieldquot; for the US army from attacks launched by the so-called quot;Islamic forcesquot;.

It was during a visit to the UK in 1992 that he met Mufti Ismail Maulvi from a mosque in Southhall, London. TheMaulvi was engaged in construction of mosques and madrasas in Mongolia and Albania and asked Azhar to visit these countries.