A Jaish-e-Mohammed “commander” is purported to have said in a social media video that Indian armed forces “tore into pieces” the family of terror group chief Maulana Masood Azhar during the Operation Sindoor strikes in Bahawalpur.

The JeM headquarters in Bahawalpur was one of the targets during the operation, carried out by India as retribution for the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.

In the viral clip, a bearded man wearing a white kurta and a skull cap tells a crowd in Urdu: “In defending this country and its borders, we embraced militancy and fought in Delhi, Kabul and Kandhar. After sacrificing everything, on May 7, Indian forces struck in Bahawalpur, tearing apart the family of Maulana Masood Azhar.”

The man speaks in a high-pitched tone on a microphone with several gun-wielding bodyguards standing in the background.

Sources in the Indian security establishment said the person giving the speech could be one of the commanders of the JeM. The Telegraph could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.

Terror launchpads deep inside Pakistan and in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir had been targeted during Operation Sindoor on May 7. The assault is the strongest punch India has landed on mainland Pakistan since the 1971 war.

The assault lasted for nearly 25 minutes and struck four locations within Pakistan’s territory and five targets in PoK — all linked to banned outfits including the JeM, Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Hizbul Mujahideen.

Reports had claimed that those killed in the attack on the Jaish’s Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah camp in Bahawalpur included Azhar’s elder sister and her husband, a nephew and his wife, a niece, and five children from Azhar’s extended family.

Reports also claimed that several top Pakistani military and civil officials attended the funerals of the designated terrorists killed during Operation Sindoor.

Azhar, a UN-proscribed terrorist, is on India’s most-wanted list and has been the mastermind of several terror attacks in the country. He was released by India in exchange for passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane IC-814 in 1999.

The elusive Azhar, who has not been seen in public since April 2019, is believed to be hiding in a “safe place” in Bahawalpur.

The JeM has been involved in a series of terror attacks in India, including the one on Parliament in 2001, the strike on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in 2000, the attack on the IAF base in Pathankot in 2016 and the Pulwama suicide bombing in 2019.