Masood Azhar's Brother Rauf, Mastermind Of IC-814 Hijacking, Also Killed In Operation Sindoor Airstrikes: Report

India is said to have successfully neutralised Abdul Rauf Azhar, the operational leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the brains behind the IC-814 hijacking, during Operation Sindoor in Pakistan's Punjab province, as per official sources cited in news reports.

The Indian military executed operations in Bahawalpur and Muridke, located in the Punjab province, obliterating the central bases of JeM and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). These two notorious terrorist groups have been responsible for numerous Indian casualties and have caused significant harm to India over multiple years.

“Among those reported eliminated is Abdul Rauf Azhar — operational head of Jaishe-Mohammad, mastermind of the IC-814 hijacking, and a central figure in international jihadist networks," the officials were quoted as saying by News18.

UN-identified terrorist Masood Azhar, was reported to have lost 10 family members, including his brother Abdul Rauf Azhar, sister and brother-in-law, in the Bahawalpur strikes conducted by India, according to sources from yesterday. A statement affirming their deaths was released by the JeM terrorist group.

“Rauf Azhar’s role in orchestrating the IC-814 hijacking directly facilitated the release of Omar Saeed Sheikh, a key Al-Qaeda operative who went on to kidnap and murder Daniel Pearl, an American-Jewish journalist with the Wall Street Journal. Pearl’s brutal execution in 2002 shocked the conscience of the world and remains a defining example of the global threat posed by state-protected terror networks," officials added.

In December 1999, Abdul Rauf Azhar was one of the hijackers involved in the seizure of Indian Airlines flight IC-814, which was traveling from Kathmandu to Delhi.

The aircraft was commandeered by five terrorists from the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and redirected to Afghanistan, which was under Taliban control at the time. The release of Masood Azhar was necessitated as part of the exchange deal for the passengers on the plane.

Following his liberation, Masood Azhar established JeM, an organisation responsible for numerous assaults on Indian territory, such as the Parliament attacks in 2001 and 2016. Even though JeM was prohibited in Pakistan after the 2001 incident, the group persists in its operations within the country.