Judea Pearl, father of slain Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl, has expressed gratitude to those who reached out to him in response to the killing of Pakistani terrorist Abdul Rauf Azhar by Indian forces.
“I want to thank all of you who reached out to me today in response to the news that India's military forces have eliminated Abdul Rauf Azhar—a man described as 'responsible for the kidnapping and murder of my son, Daniel,’” Pearl wrote in a post on X on Friday.
Pearl issued a clarification on Azhar’s role in the events leading to his son’s abduction and murder, writing: “Azhar was a Pakistani extremist and leader of the terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed. While his group was not directly involved in the plot to abduct Danny, it was indirectly responsible. Azhar orchestrated the hijacking that led to the release of Omar Sheikh—the man who lured Danny into captivity. Sheikh was later sentenced to death but ultimately released from prison and kept in a 'Government Safe House’.”
He added that further details of the “painful process” could be found in the writings of journalist Asra Nomani, a close friend and former colleague of Daniel Pearl.
Pearl ended his post by stating, “Thank you again for all your understanding and support, and let Danny's life remind us of who we are and what we stand for.”
India’s foreign secretary Vikram Misri on Friday affirmed the Bahawalpur link to Daniel Pearl’s killing during a media interaction.
Replying to a question on the town’s connection to terrorism, Misri said, “Bahawalpur is the headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammad proscribed by the United States. Maulana Masood Azhar is a proscribed individual. In the tragic killing of Daniel Pearl the JeM was in some way directly or indirectly involved.”
According to Asra Nomani, Pearl had traveled to Bahawalpur in Pakistan’s Punjab province in December 2001 and found active militant training camps there.
“My friend, WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl went to Bahawalpur in December 2001 with a notebook and a pen. Gen. Pervez Musharraf had just promised he was shutting down Pakistan’s militant groups after a strike by Pakistan’s terrorists against the Parliament in India, and Danny reported on the militant offices in Bahawalpur,” she wrote.
“What did Danny learn? The militant training camps were open for business in Bahawalpur,” Nomani added in a separate post, where she also noted that since she first heard the name Bahawalpur in January 2002.
