Mohammad Tahir Anwar, the elder brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar, has died in Pakistan under reportedly mysterious circumstances, as per the reports.

According to the banned group’s official channel, his funeral is set to take place on Monday at Jamia Masjid Usman Wali in Bahawalpur, though the exact cause of death has not been revealed.

Anwar was reportedly one of the five brothers of Maulana Masood Azhar and played a significant role in Jaish-e-Mohammed’s operations. 

Last year, Masood Azhar said that ten members of his family and four of his aides were killed in India’s targeted airstrikes under Operation Sindoor, carried out in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack. 

According to a statement attributed to Azhar, who was arrested in India in 1994 and later released following the Air India IC 814 hijacking, the strike on the JeM headquarters at Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah in Bahawalpur claimed the lives of his elder sister, her husband, a nephew and his wife, a niece, and five other extended family members.

He said that he feels ‘neither regret nor despair,’ adding, ‘It comes to my heart repeatedly that I too would have joined this fourteen-member happy caravan.’ 

He also remarked, “Time for their departure had come, but the Lord did not kill them.”

Listed as an international terrorist by the UN Security Council, Masood Azhar has been linked to the planning and execution of several major terror attacks in India, including the 2001 Parliament attack, 2008 Mumbai attacks, 2016 Pathankot attack, and 2019 Pulwama attack.

Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) is an Islamist terrorist group based in Pakistan and is designated as a terrorist organization by the UN, US, UK, and India.

India has repeatedly asserted that JeM operates from Pakistani territory with the support or acquiescence of certain elements within Pakistan’s security establishment.