The chief of the Jaish-e-Mohammad -- one of the deadliest terrorist groups operating in Kashmir -- Azhar was released by India after terrorists hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC-814 from Kathmandu, Nepal, on December 24, 1999.
The hijacked plane was flown to Kandahar in Afghanistan and the passengers were released only after India agreed to the terrorists' demand for setting three dreaded terrorists, including Azhar, free. Then Indian external affairs minister Jaswant Singh took Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Sheikh Omar Saeed to Kandahar to secure the release of the passengers. Saeed was later sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
Azhar was born in July 1968 in Bahawalpur in Punjab, Pakistan. He studied at the Jamia Uloom-i-Islami, near Karachi and later joined the ultra-orthodox Binori madarssa in Karachi, said to be the training school for the Taliban. During this period he was influenced by the work of the terrorist group, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. He edited the Harkat magazine, Sada-i-Mujahid.
He soon established himself as a fundraiser and ideologue for the Harkat. He travelled to Kashmir in 1994 for the formal reunification of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Harkat-ul-Ansar, but was arrested by Indian authorities.
After he was set free, Azhar founded the Jaish-e-Mohammad, which has been accused of numerous attacks on Indian soil, including the December 13, 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament.
Pakistan President Prevez Musharraf banned the Jaish and detained Azhar after the US named Jaish in its list of terrorist outfits.
But Azhar is still free, and the Jaish is still carrying out deadly attacks.