Weeks before Delhi blast Pulwama mastermind’s widow joins Jaish’s women’s wing
Weeks before the devastating blast near Delhi’s Red Fort, Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) quietly added a new face to its women’s wing, Jamaat-ul-Mominat- Afira Bibi, widow of Umar Farooq, a top JeM commander and key conspirator in the 2019 Pulwama attack, media reports said.
Intelligence sources have confirmed that Bibi has joined the outfit’s Shura (advisory council) and will work alongside Sadia Azhar, the younger sister of UN-designated terrorist Masood Azhar, and wife of Yusuf Azhar, the Kandahar hijacking mastermind killed in Operation Sindoor.
Masood Azhar had announced the formation of a women’s brigade on October 8, followed by an induction event called ‘Dukhtaran-e-Islam’ in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s Rawalkot on October 19.
The aim: to radicalise and recruit women under the guise of “religious education” and “social activities.”
The Jamaat-ul-Mominat has since launched an online indoctrination programme called ‘Tufat al-Mominat’ to train and mobilise women.
The course, run by Azhar’s sisters, Sadia and Samaira Azhar, charges each participant PKR 500 and includes daily 40-minute sessions glorifying jihad and women’s “duties” in the cause.
Investigators probing the Red Fort car blast, which killed nine people and injured more than twenty, have traced possible links to the Jamaat-ul-Mominat network.
One of its recruits in India, Dr Shaheen Saeed from Lucknow, was arrested hours before the explosion when an assault rifle and ammunition were found in her car.
She was allegedly tasked with setting up the women’s cell’s operations in India.
Security agencies say Jaish is trying to replicate the ISIS and Hamas model, using women not only for fundraising and propaganda but also potentially for fidayeen (suicide) missions, NDTV reported.
Officials believe that Masood Azhar’s push to bring women like Afira Bibi into leadership roles is part of a broader strategy to expand the terror network under the cover of “empowerment”- a worrying new front in Pakistan-backed extremism targeting India.
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