The first communication issued after the strikes opens with an unusually personal disclosure by Azhar. He writes that fourteen people connected to him had been killed, including ten members of his family and four close associates.
A series of internal communications issued by Jaish-eMohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar in the days following India’s Operation Sindoor offers the most detailed account yet of how the Pakistan-based terror outfit internally processed the Indian strikes, documenting Azhar’s deeply personal account of losing close family members, his attempts to transform those losses into an ideological narrative, his appeal for Pakistan to retaliate militarily and his subsequent endorsement of Islamabad’s military response.
The communications chronicle the evolution of JeM’s messaging from 7 May 2025 onwards when Operation Sindoor became operational. Rather than portraying the strikes as an organisational setback, the letters systematically reinterpret the episode through a religious lens, beginning with personal grief, moving to theological justification, then to demands for military retaliation and finally to the celebration of Pakistan’s retaliatory operation.
The first communication issued after the strikes opens with an unusually personal disclosure by Azhar. He writes that fourteen people connected to him had been killed, including ten members of his family and four close associates.
He identifies those killed as his elder sister, her husband, his scholar nephew, his nephew’s wife, his scholar niece, five children from the family, his longtime associate Huzaifa, Huzaifa’s mother and two other associates.
While JeM had earlier acknowledged casualties following Operation Sindoor—a development first revealed by this newspaper on social media—the subsequent letters provide a far more intimate account of those killed, dwelling extensively on their lives and Azhar’s relationship with them.
One entire letter is devoted to his elder sister, whom he calls “Baji Jan”. Rather than describing her in organisational terms, Azhar remembers her as a deeply religious woman who regularly read Azhar’s writings. He recalls that she frequently sent messages saying that a particular letter had resolved a problem in her household, even remarking that it often seemed as though he somehow knew what was happening inside her home.
According to Azhar, she constantly prayed for martyrdom and dedicated all six of her children to Islamic education. He writes that all six became Islamic scholars and that five memorised the Quran. Despite living on what he describes as a very modest income, she maintained the family’s dignity, managed household finances carefully and arranged the marriages of all her children.
Azhar says he often praised her management skills, telling her she was an expert at running a household despite limited means, while she would quietly bow her head in humility whenever he complimented her.
He also reveals that she was especially attached to her youngest son and youngest daughter, both of whom died alongside her in the strike.
Another communication focuses on his brother-in-law, Hafiz Muhammad Jamil.
Instead of portraying him as a terrorist, Azhar describes him as an accountant employed in Bahawalpur’s grain market. According to the letter, Jamil specialised in bookkeeping and also maintained the accounts of JeM’s mosques, handling large sums of money entrusted to him.
Azhar writes that after Jamil’s death the family decided to identify any outstanding debts he might have left behind. When they contacted his employer, they were told that Jamil had borrowed Rs 100,000 for his son’s marriage, of which Rs 63,000 remained unpaid.
According to Azhar, the employer broke down in tears and refused to recover the remaining amount, citing Jamil’s honesty and integrity.
The children killed in the strikes emerge as the centrepiece of almost every subsequent communication. Azhar repeatedly refers to them as “flowers of Paradise,” “birds of Paradise,” and “innocent birds”. In one letter he says an entire household lost four children between the ages of three and seven, leaving their parents alone.
In another communication, he reveals that two women killed in the strike were pregnant, one due to give birth within a week and the other within four months. Invoking Islamic jurisprudence, he argues that because the unborn children had already been “ensouled,” they too should be counted among the martyrs.
Perhaps the most personal passage appears in a letter where Azhar admits that children have always been his greatest emotional weakness.
He writes that whenever he saw young children he himself became like one of them, and they in turn accepted him as their companion. Anticipating the possibility of such a tragedy long before it occurred, he says he had carried for years a copy of Bard al-Akbad “inda Faqd alAwlad” (“Cooling the Hearts of Those Who Have Lost Children”) so that if he ever lost one of his own children he would remain patient rather than succumb to grief. He says the book became a source of strength after the deaths in his own family.
Almost immediately after announcing the deaths, Azhar begins reframing them as a theological event. In the very first communication issued after the strike, he personally blames Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the deaths of his relatives. He argues that the strikes crossed all limits and suggests that they eliminated any expectation of restraint, portraying the bombing of Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah as an act that would eventually invite severe retribution against India.
In a letter titled “The Time of Love,” he argues that Allah tests only those whom He loves. Quoting Quranic verses, he lists fear, hunger, financial loss, funerals and the destruction of homes and cherished places as divine examinations intended to elevate believers rather than punish them.
He repeatedly urges followers to respond to every loss by reciting, “Indeed we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return,” arguing that those who do so receive Allah’s special mercy and guidance.
The personal losses described by Azhar are only one part of the casualty narrative. In a communication issued on 8 May, he broadens the focus beyond his own family, writing that 36 people had been killed in the strikes.
While the letter does not identify all of them individually or distinguish between relatives and JeM members, Azhar presents the figure as the total toll suffered by his organisation and immediate circle. He acknowledges that the deaths constituted a “major loss” but insists they should not be regarded as a defeat, arguing instead that those killed had fulfilled their duty and attained martyrdom.
The letters then connect the deaths directly to JeM’s ideological mission even as he kept attacking Prime Minister Modi for authorising Operation Sindoor.
Referring to five children killed at Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah, Azhar writes that the “five innocent birds of Paradise” had, within two days, spread such a powerful call to faith and jihad that “we could not have achieved the same in forty years.”
As the immediate mourning subsides, the correspondence assumes an increasingly political tone.
One letter, apparently written about 36 hours after the Indian strikes, calls upon Pakistan to retaliate militarily.
Azhar, while acknowledging that modern technology makes it difficult to stop such attacks (referring to the air strike by the Indian Air Force), insists that Pakistan must now launch a counterstrike. Failure to retaliate, he writes, would invite humiliation and even divine punishment. He goes further, arguing that “forgiveness” in such circumstances would be a sin and that “a ceasefire is a crime”, urging Pakistan’s leadership to respond militarily to protect the country.
Another recurring theme is Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah in Bahawalpur, one of the sites damaged during Operation Sindoor. Azhar repeatedly returns to the mosque, portraying it as the principal symbol of resilience after the strikes. He claims supporters volunteered to rebuild it, that worshippers continued reaching the mosque despite the damage and that congregational prayers resumed almost immediately. According to him, only one Fajr prayer was missed after the strike, while Friday prayers and the remaining daily prayers continued without interruption. In another letter he claims the mosque and surrounding buildings were filled with angels on the night of the attack and that miraculous events enabled intended targets to survive.
The final stage of the correspondence follows Pakistan’s launch of Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos in response to Operation Sindoor.
Azhar immediately issued a letter carrying the same title. Invoking the Quranic phrase Bunyan-un-Marsoos, he praises those who authorised what he calls the “blessed jihadi attack” and those who carried it out, describing the operation as an extraordinary achievement and claiming it marked “the beginning of the failure of the RSS in India.”
The letter concludes with one of the most striking passages in the entire series.
Returning once again to the children killed in the strikes, Azhar writes that the children were “looking at missiles bearing their names” (ostensibly referring to Pakistani missiles that were used in “Bunyan-un-Marsoos”), though the letter does not explain whether this is meant literally or metaphorically. He portrays them as joyfully watching the retaliation, treating the missiles as new toys while declaring that “much more is yet to come.”
