In its response to Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs' letter asking to locate and arrest Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar, the Taliban asserted that the terrorist is in Pakistan.
On Wednesday, Islamabad had penned a letter to its neighbouring country officially asking them to locate and arrest Azhar, who may be hiding in either Nangarhar or Kunar.
While speaking to TOLOnews, Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said, "The leader of the Jaesh-e-Mohammad group is not here in Afghanistan. This is an organization which could be in Pakistan. Anyway, he is not in Afghanistan and we have not been asked anything like this. We have heard about it in the news. Our reaction is that this is not true."
According to Pakistan-based Geo News, a top official, on the basis of anonymity, said, "We have written a one-page letter to the Afghan Foreign Ministry asking them to locate, report and arrest Masood Azhar, as we believe that he is hiding somewhere in Afghanistan."
Azhar formed the terrorist outfit after being released by India in exchange for passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane that was diverted to Afghanistan's Kandahar in the year 1999. The Taliban regime had allowed the hijackers and freed terrorists, including Maulana Masood Azhar, to cross over into Pakistan.
It is pertinent to mention here that the terrorist group, JeM, has carried out multiple deadly attacks in India, including the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. The attack brought the two neighbouring countries—India and Pakistan—to the brink of a full-fledged war.
In 2019, the United Nations declared Azhar a 'global terrorist' by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee, despite China's several attempts to block India's proposal to blacklist the Pakistan-based terrorist for several years. The UNSC has approved the blacklisting and he is now subject to an assets freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo.