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Masood prefers to be known as Islamic cleric

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

In February 1994, journalists had been invited by the army to a briefing immediately after the abduction and subsequent killing of Major Bhupinder Singh of the Border Roads Organisation while on duty on the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway. After the briefing, the then Brigadier General Staff 15 Corps, Arjun Ray, had a surprise in store for the scribes preparing to leave when armymen escorted two persons before them.

The BGS then broke the news that the army had achieved a major success in arresting two top militants -- Sajad Afghani, chief commander of the Harkatul Ansar, and Maulana Mohammad Masood Azhar Alvi alias Wali Aadam. Sajad was the first chief commander of the newly launched Harkatul Ansar, formed after the Harkatul Mujahideen and Harkatul Jehadi Islami, then headed by Nasrullah Largiyal, a top militant leader, merged in 1993.

Police officials say it was only due to the efforts of Masood that the two frontline organisations merged. Both had a brief chat with the journalists and Masood said "he was a religious scholar and had nothing to do with militancy". The army had said Masood was the publicity chief of the organisation. The BGS had told journalists that it was by chance that the troops intercepted a passing auto-rickshaw in which three persons were travelling, following the killing of Major Bhupinder Singh. While one local militant managed escape, the army arrested Afghani and Masood.

Both were brought to Srinagar after two days and were later interrogated by different security agencies before being shifted to outside jails. Masood remained in Tihar Jail for two years from 1995 but was later shifted to the high-security Kotbhalwal Jail in Jammu where he now spends his time reading newspapers, listening to the radio and with Kashmiris and foreign militants who, according to one police official, would "respect him". He spends his time in the cell sitting silent, cool towards top militants of the Hizbul including Mir Hamza of POK, Zulfikar Ali of Sindh Pakistan, Majid Khan of Hajipur Punjab, Ghulam Nabi of Sialkot and Mohammad Mubashir of Samanabad Lahore.

One senior prison officer, on condition of anonymity, said Masood was always busy in prayers and leads the five Friday prayers in the Kotbhalwal Jail. Masood, who hails from Kousar Colony B in Modern Town area of Bahawalpur in Punjab province of Pakistan is not a big name in Kashmir, unlike other foreign militants. He did his post-graduation in Islamic studies from Lahore. His father, Allah Bakash Sabir Alvi, is a big industrialist in Pakistan's Bahalwapur district. The widely travelled Masood Alvi was a journalist and editor of a magazine, Sada-e-Jung published from Peshawar. He has travelled to the UK, Nairobi, the UAE, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, France and USA before his arrest in Kashmir.

The present hijack is the fourth attempt to free him. The militants took hostage two Britons, David Mackie, a private TV producer, and Kim Housego, son of the then Financial Times correspondent David Housego. Both were abducted from Aru in Pahalgam on June 7, 1994. They were released by Harkatul Ansar after 20 long days. This was followed by another abduction of three Britons in Delhi. Al-Faran later took hostage five tourists in Pahalgam. While a Norwegian tourist, Hans Christian Ostro, was killed, the fate of the other four, including one American, two Britons and one German tourist, is still not known.

The present stand-off at Kandahar, police officials here admit, may give a fillip to the militancy either way the present crisis is resolved.

UNI adds that security has been stepped up in and around the Kotbhalwal jail, where the 42-year-old Maulana Azhar Masood, whose release is being demanded by the hijackers of Indian Airlines flight IC 814, is among those interned.

The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen ideologue shares the prison, among others, with about 45 Pakistani and eight Afghani militants.

According to sources, police and Central Reserve Police Force jawans are on high alert and security arrangements in and around the jail have been further intensified.

No senior police official was willing to share any information about Masood.

However, according to the sources, Masood is a top operative of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence and a millionaire.

Masood has devoted himself to the propagation of Islam and Islamic theories.

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