New Delhi: It took almost two decades and a half to deliver little justice to the slain Jewish-American journalist Daniel Pearl after Bharat precision strikes at one of the sites located in Bahawalpur in Pakistan’s Punjab province on May 7 neutralised Abdul Rauf Azhar, a key figure of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) who masterminded highjacking of Bhartiya airlines IC-814 in 1999, leading to release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and others.
Pearl, a journalist with the Wall Street Journal was reportedly awaiting an interview with one of the terror masterminds operating from Bahawalpur when he got in touch with Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-Pakistani terror operative who later lured and abducted Pearl, leading to his cold-blooded murder in early 2002.
Pearl arrived in Pakistan to investigate the alleged crackdown on terrorists by the Pakistani authorities following the attack on Bhartiya parliament by Pak-sponsored terrorists in December 2001. Though, what he found in Pakistan was entirely in contrast with what the authorities were claiming, possibly to deceive the international community.
According to one of Pearl’s then colleague associated with the same media conglomerate, Pearl discovered that the ‘claimed crackdown’ by Pakistani authorities on terrorists was nothing but a façade and the terror groups were continuing to thrive in the town of Bahawalpur despite the alleged hunt.
Pearl spent some time in Pakistan for his reporting assignment and was subsequently introduced to Sheikh by a public representative of a terror group operating from Bahawalpur for an interview with one of the key man of the group. What follows was Sheikh luring Pearl for the said interview from where he never made a return.
Highjacking of IC-814 and release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
Terrorists highjacked the IC-814 airplane in the year 1999, forcing Bhartiya authorities to release three dreaded terrorists to secure the release of hostages kept by the terrorists. The highjacking of IC-814 was masterminded by Rauf who eventually succeeded in opening the doors of prison for his brother and JeM chief Masood Azhar along with British Pakistani operative Omar Sheikh.
Report suggests, Sheikh along with over two dozen members associated with the terror groups orchestrated Pearl’s kidnapping amd subsequently handed him over to the terrorists.
Pearl’s video and pictures stormed the international community after he was put up in chains and forced to read a statement on gun point. He was mercilessly beheaded by his abductors in weeks to come after his disappearance.
A total of four men including Omar Sheikh was later put on a trial and eventually set free by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in the year 2021, vanishing hope for justice to the slain journo who was brutally beheaded for exposing the truth of the terror factories being operated from Pakistan.
While replying to a query, Ministry of External Affairs’ secretary Vikram Misri in a press briefing recently said “JeM was in some way directly or indirectly responsible for the death of Daniel Pearl. But the real connection is through Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British Pakistani jihadi who was held in India but was finally released in 2000 and he was the one who lured Daniel Pearl to his eventual murder.”
“So these are all obviously connected figures, connected individuals, connected institutions. The attack on Bahawalpur, on that facility of JeM in Bahawalpur, is, I would imagine, a fitting part of this unfortunate incident,” he added.
Two decades on, the town of Bahawalpur still continues to be the breeding ground for terrorists, prompting the Bhartiya forces to strike the terror camps operated from the town on May 7 a fortnight after the ghastly terror attack in Pahalgam of Jammu and Kashmir on April 22.
The strikes carried out under “Operation Sindoor” ended a long wait of over 22 years for Pearl’s friends, colleagues and family members with may thanking Bharat as one of the strikes at Bahawalpur led to neutralisation of JeM’s key figure Abdul Rauf Azhar, delivering little justice to the slain American journalist.
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