The Union home ministry has designated 23 individuals based in Pakistan, associated with Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other outfits, as “terrorists” under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for their involvement in various activities, including infiltration, recruitment, the supply of arms and planning attacks in Jammu and Kashmir.
Among those designated are close aides of LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, who is behind multiple attacks on Indian soil.
The Central government amended the UAPA in August 2019 to include a provision for designating an individual as a terrorist. Prior to this amendment, only organisations could be designated as terrorist organisations. Designating individuals as terrorists allows agencies such as the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to impose an embargo on arms and funds and seize the assets of such persons.
The current list of designated terrorists includes top names such as Hafiz Saeed, JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar, 26/11 Mumbai attacks co-mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and US-based Khalistani leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, among others.
With the latest addition of 23 names, the list now includes 80 individuals designated as terrorists.
According to a notification issued on Saturday morning, those designated include three close aides of Hafiz Saeed — Abdul Rauf, a senior member of LeT and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD); Hafiz Khalid Waleed, another senior LeT and JuD leader; and Rana Iftikhar, who coordinates jihadi activities and motivates youths to carry out terrorist activities.
Other key individuals designated by the MHA include Masood Ilyas Kashmiri, a senior JeM functionary who operates from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. He was involved in the April 22, 2022, attack by JeM terrorists on security forces in Sunjwan, Jammu.
“Masood Ilyas Kashmiri is a senior Jaish-e-Mohammed functionary and is involved in carrying out a wide range of terrorist activities against the country, including recruiting youth into the terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed, imparting training to them and then facilitating the infiltration of terrorists into the country,” the MHA notification stated.
Mohammad Mussadiq alias Doctor, who is the main handler of JeM’s infiltration of Pakistani terrorists into India, has also been included in the list. He was involved in the Sunjwan attack.
“Mussadiq is involved in carrying out a wide range of terrorist activities against the country, including supplying arms and ammunition through drones across the border, planning terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and, to further widen the scope of terror activities, is also involved in handling a team of Jaish-e-Mohammed cyber operatives who use various social media platforms to recruit youth into the terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed,” the MHA said.
A third senior JeM functionary designated on Saturday is Mufti Muhammad Asghar Khan alias Abu Saad, who is a launching commander of JeM terrorists in J&K and was “one of the masterminds of the attack on the Indian Army camp at Nagrota, Jammu, on November 29, 2016”.
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