Jaish chief Masood Azhar suspected to have kidney failure, undergoes regular dialysis: Report

Earlier Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had said that Azhar was "too unwell to leave the house"

Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar. (File)

Maulana Masood Azhar, the chief of terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad, is suspected to be suffering from renal failure and is under regular dialysis at an army hospital in Rawalpindi in Pakistan, officials told news agency PTI. This comes a day after Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that Azhar was “too unwell to leave the house”

Azhar is the mastermind behind Jaish-e-Mohammad – the organisation that has carried out multiple attacks on India over the last nearly two decades, including the recent Pulwama attack that killed 40 CRPF officers. India has been repeatedly trying to list him as a “global terrorist” at the United Nations Security Council.

Earlier during an interaction with CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour, Qureshi said, “Azhar is in Pakistan. According to my information, he is very unwell. He is unwell to the extent that he can’t leave his house, because he’s really unwell.”

Story continues below this ad

Read: In Pak, Azhar under ‘protective custody’. No such check on funds

The Jaish-e-Mohammad chief was a close associate of Osama bin Laden, terror motivator in several African countries and also known by many as the Pakistani cleric who brought jihad into the religious discourse at mosques in the UK, the official said. Azhar was in fact released by India in exchange for freeing the hijacked Indian Airlines aircraft IC-814 on December 31, 1999, in Kandahar

According to Indian agencies, After 9/11, Laden was cornered and the JeM became the key conduit to bring fighters and their families from Afghanistan into safe havens in Pakistan, run by JeM and Lashkar-e-Taiba. While describing the capability of Jaish, India’s draft proposal at UNSC said, “JeM is an organisation that does not just impact India, but feeds on pan-Islamism and has been a major threat to global peace and security.”

Read | Ready to engage with India on dossier related to Jaish-e-Mohammad: Pakistan Foreign Minister

Story continues below this ad

Besides the attacks in Pulwama and Pathankot, the draft proposal names Azhar for the 2016 Uri attack where which a group of four Jaish terrorists attacked an Army brigade headquarters near the Line of Control and killed 17 Army personnel and injured another 30. The dossier further lists dozens of other attacks carried out by Jaish on security forces and Army installations in J&K from 2000-2014, the IC 814 hijacking that helped secure Azhar’s release and the 2001 Parliament attack after his release.

New Delhi has also been mounting pressure on Islamabad to dismantle the Jaish infrastructure and curb its finances. After Pulwama attack, it conducted air strike at a training camp in Balakot run by Azhar’s kin.