NEW DELHI — India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Thursday that Abdul Rauf Azhar, a senior leader of the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed and the younger brother of its chief, Masood Azhar, was killed in a series of Indian airstrikes launched earlier this week under Operation Sindoor.
The air operation, carried out in response to the April 22 attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 civilians, targeted nine sites across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Among the targets, Indian officials said, was the Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters in Bahawalpur, in Pakistan’s Punjab Province.
In a post on social media, the BJP published a photograph of Abdul Rauf Azhar with the word “eliminated” written across it, without providing direct evidence of his death.
Former U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad also commented on the reported killing. “India has killed the brutal terrorist assassin Abdul Rauf Azhar, whose psychopathic beheading of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 we all remember,” Mr. Khalilzad wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Justice has been served.”
Abdul Rauf Azhar has long been a prominent figure in South Asian militancy. He is a designated global terrorist by the United States and was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2010 for his role in planning and supporting attacks in India. He was linked to the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight IC-814, which led to the release of his brother Masood Azhar from an Indian prison.
He has also been accused of involvement in the 2016 Pathankot airbase attack and other operations carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammed, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations and several countries, including India and the United States.
Pakistan has not yet confirmed his death, and there has been no official statement from Jaish-e-Mohammed.
The announcement comes amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, following the Pahalgam attack, which New Delhi has blamed on Pakistan-based militants. Islamabad has denied any involvement.
