Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Masood Azhar asks Pakistan govt to allow terror groups to attack India

Terror outfit Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Masood Azhar has now urged the Pakistani establishment to allow jihadist groups to escalate attacks on India.

Karachi: Rattled and frustrated with Indian Army's devastating surgical strikes along the Line of Control last month, the chief of terror outfit Jaish-e-Muhammad, Masood Azhar, has now urged the Pakistani establishment to allow jihadist groups to escalate attacks on India.

An Indian Express report said on Thursday that the JeM chief has appealed to the Pakistan-based terrorist outfits to step up attack on India, arguing that “a lack of decisive decision-making” could rob Pakistan of a “historic opportunity” to seize Kashmir.

His appeal was published in the current issue of the Jaish weekly magazine al-Qalam.

The JeM chief's remarks came in the wake of a bitter controversy about stretched ties between Pakistan’s civilian government and military over the continued operations against various anti-India terrorist outfits operating from its soil.

“If the government of Pakistan shows a little courage the problem of Kashmir, as well as the dispute over water, can be resolved once and for all right now. If nothing else, the government simply has to open the path for the mujahideen. Then, god willing, all the bitter memories of 1971 will be dissolved into the triumphant emotions of 2016,” Azhar wrote in a front-page article in the JeM magazine.

Through his hard-hitting article, Azhar also directly questioned Pakistan government's policy establishment, arguing that the jihadist policies it backed in the 1990s had brought strategic benefits to the country.

India had sought to build Akhand Bharat, but its hopes were degraded in the course of the jihad which left “every one of its limbs badly injured,” he added.

“What remained of its military prowess was exposed in Pathankot and Uri,” he said.

“India is putting pressure on Pakistan at this time. Looking at the situation in Kashmir, though, Pakistan should have been doing all this. Given that Kashmir is our jugular vein, we should have cancelled the SAARC conference ourselves, and cancelled the ceasefire on the Line of Control. In the last ninety days, how many Muslims have been martyred, and how many more injured,” he asked.

The JeM chief argued further saying ''the jihadist operations in Kashmir have significantly eroded India’s military capacities. Consider India before and after the jihad in Kashmir.”

“You will see a dramatic difference. In the course of this journey, which I have been an eyewitness to, I have seen India reduced from a serpent to an earthworm,” he added.