Kumar Bahukhandi
Masood Azhar is a UN-designated terrorist and founder of the Jaish terror group (File).
Masood Azhar is ramping up his ‘donations’ drive; after a public address – at the Markaz Usman O Ali in Bahawalpur last month – the Jaish is now collecting 500 PKR (156 INR) from every woman.
New Delhi:Earlier this month NDTV revealed how the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed – designated a terrorist organisation by the United Nations – is creating the Jamat ul-Muminat, a women’s unit.
Now, in new documents seen exclusively by NDTV, it appears the group has launched an online training course – called Tufat al-Muminat – to collect funds and carry out recruitment.
As part of this course, women family members of Jaish leaders, including relatives of founder Masood Azhar and his commanders, will teach others about their ‘duties’ with reference to jihad and Islam. The recruitment drive – to be conducted online – is scheduled to begin November 8.
‘Lectures’ will last 40 minutes per day and be led by Azhar’s two sisters, Sadiya Azhar and Samaira Azhar, whose classes will ‘encourage’ women to join the Jamat ul-Muminat.
Sadiya Azhar, his younger sister, has been given charge of the Jamat, sources said.
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Sadiya’s husband, Yusuf Azhar, was one of several Masood Azhar family members killed during an Operation Sindoor airstrike on the Jaish HQ in Bahawalpur in May. The airstrike was India’s military response to the April terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
Afreer Farooq, the wife of Umar Farooq, one of the Pahalgam attackers, has also been included.
Azhar, meanwhile, is ramping up his ‘donations’ drive. After his last public address – at the Markaz Usman O Ali in Bahawalpur last month – the Jaish is now collecting 500 PKR (156 INR) from every woman enrolling in this ‘course’ and making them fill an online information form.
The online component is to circumvent extremist social norms in Pakistan that consider it improper for women to go out alone. And the collection of 500 PKR, sources said, underlines Pak’s hypocrisy in claiming to have implemented Financial Action Task Force regulations.
Azhar announced the Jamat women’s unit on October 8. On October 19, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, there was an event called ‘Dukhtaran-e-Islam’ to start bringing women into the group.
