India on Tuesday (September 15, 2026) dismissed as “gimmicks” Pakistan’s fresh announcement of a seven-million-rupee bounty on Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar , demanding that Islamabad take “concrete action” to combat terrorism.
Azhar remains wanted in India for major terror attacks, including the 2001 Parliament strike, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the 2016 Pathankot airbase assault and the 2019 Pulwama bombing. “Such gimmicks and hoodwinking by Pakistan is nothing new. India has for years accused Pakistan of sheltering Azhar, while Pakistan has maintained that he fled to Afghanistan – a claim rejected by Afghanistan’s Taliban government. However, last week the Taliban regime dismissed Pakistan’s repeated claims, with a senior Afghan Foreign Ministry official saying he is not in the country.
Pakistan has maintained the bounty on Azhar, who continues to be listed in the country’s Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) “Red Book” of most-wanted terrorists. We have seen similar gimmicks in the past as well,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at his regular media briefing, responding to a question on Pakistan maintaining the bounty on Azhar. The key reasons included its failure to curb terror financing, particularly to Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba terror networks, besides weak implementation of financial sanctions on UN-designated persons, people tracking FATF’s actions said. After its exit from the grey list and a decrease in international pressure and spotlight, Pakistan has backslided on assurances it had made to FATF to exit the grey list, the people cited above said.
