New Delhi: Ali Kashif Jan, the Pakistani handler of the 2016 attack on Pathankot air base, has been designated as a militant by the government.
Jan alias Jan Ali Kashif is the third terrorist to have been designated as a terrorist by the central government in the last five days.
The Union home ministry said in a notification than Jan was the handler of Punjab’s Pathankot air force station attack in January 2016 in which seven security personnel and one civilian were killed.
Jan, 42, is the operational commander and part of the core planning committee of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). He continues to operate from the launching pads located in Pakistan and is involved in recruitment of cadres for their training and coordinate attack plans at targets in India, the home ministry said.
Jan is also accused in various cases registered and being investigated by the National Investigation Agency. He had been declared proclaimed offender in these cases.
After the attack at the Pathankot air base, a five-member team of Pakistani investigators had visited the air base and collected evidence for three days and met witnesses and survivors.
However, after the Pakistani team returned home, it put the blame on India for the attack.
Jan was born on January 30, 1982 and a resident of Charsadda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan.
A Red Corner Notice was also issued against him.
Jan is now 34th individual who has been designated as terrorist by the government.
On April 8, the government had designated Hafiz Talha Saeed, a key leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the son of 26/11 Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed, a terrorist.
On Monday, Pakistani national Mohiuddin Aurangzeb Alamgir, who was involved in the attack on a CRPF bus in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, was designated as a terrorist.
The JeM has been responsible for a series of deadly attacks in India, mostly in Jammu and Kashmir, in which scores of civilians and security personnel have been killed over the years.
JeM founder Maulana Masood Azhar, who was released by India in exchange for the release of a hijacked Indian Airlines flight from Kandahar in 1999, is one of the most wanted militants in India, along with LeT founder Hafiz Saeed and the LeT ‘operational commander’ Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.
India has been consistently seeking Azhar’s custody but Pakistan has refused to comply.
The JeM is listed as a terrorist organisation under the First Schedule of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or the UAPA.
The UAPA has been enacted to provide for more effective prevention of certain unlawful activities of associations and individuals and for dealing with terrorist activities and for matters connected therewith.
The act empowers the central government to notify the name of an individual in its Fourth Schedule if it believes that he is involved in terrorism.
PTI

Press Trust of India