Is India's Most Wanted Terrorist Masood Azhar Dead? A Fact-Check

New Delhi:

Masood Azhar, another Pakistani terrorist most wanted in India, has been killed in a bomb blast – or so say several posts now going viral on social media. The unconfirmed photos and video at the heart of these posts come on the heels of similar posts that claimed that gangster Dawood Ibrahim — most wanted in India for decades — died of poisoning. The claims turned out to be fake. Equally fake were the screenshots of Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul Haq Kakar “confirming” the “news”.

In case of Masood Azhar — wanted in connection with multiple terror attacks including the 2001 Parliament attack — the claims were made by Twitter handles from Pakistan.

The handles claimed that the Jaish-e-Mohammed chief was killed in a bomb blast in Bahawalpur while returning from a mosque at 5 am. The blast was allegedly carried out by unknown people over personal rivalry.

No mainstream media in Pakistan has reported it.

One of the first to post the photo of the burning car is a handle called Times Algebra. Muzaffarabad news bulletin also used the photo.

But a bit of digging uncovered more.

On 3 November, a Twitter handle named OSINT posted that a police van was targeted in an attack in Dera Ismail Khan, killing 6 people and injuring 25.

But they too, appear to have recycled the photo, which was posted first in 2019 by a handle called Hasnat Ali. The caption said three TikTokers were killed in the explosion.

Masood Azhar has been wanted in India for years. Besides the 2001 attack on Parliament, he also targeted the Ram Janambhoomi temple in Ayodhya in July 2005, and the attack on CRPF personnel in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama in February 2019.

He also orchestrated an assault on the Indian Consulate in Afghanistan’s Mazar-e-Sharif in January 2016.