Terrorist Hafiz Saeed has been caught on tape saying Pakistanis carried out attack in Jammu and Kashmir
Hafiz Saeed, the Pakistan-based terror mastermind, has been heard on tape bragging that four of his "young boys" carried out Monday's attack on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Akhnoor and "killed 30 soldiers" before returning. The army has rubbished the boast, saying "there has been no 30-person casualty count in Akhnoor".
Hafiz Saeed, the founder of the terror outfit Jamaat-ud-Dawa, was reportedly addressing a gathering of his operatives at Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir on Wednesday.
While he owns the attack, he falsely claims it was on an army camp in Akhnoor. The terrorists attacked a General Reserve Engineer Force (GREF) camp just 2 km from the International Border, and killed three labourers. There were 10 personnel and around 10 GREF labourers in the camp at the time.
In the audio tape, Hafiz Saeed says: "Four young men, day before yesterday... entered the camp at Akhnoor, Jammu. I am talking about now...it's not some past event, it happened two days ago..."
He claims that the "four young men entered the army camp, wiped out soldiers in 10 camps and returned safe, without even a scratch. This is a surgical strike." Cheers are heard in the background.
Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the September surgical strikes by the army across the Line of Control, Hafiz Saeed says "it is a lie. They did drama to fool the world."
"But you have given an opportunity and we mujahideen will tell you what is a surgical strike... I am telling you about the strike carried out two days ago, in a place like Jammu where they say nobody dares to enter. Four mujahid entered the camp, cleaned up 10 rooms and killed 30 soldiers. They destroyed the camp, burnt it and all four came back safely."
NDTV is not carrying the audio.
Hafiz Saeed is wanted by India for the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 were killed.
Despite being a UN-designated terrorist, Hafiz Saeed roams free in Pakistan and spouts inflammatory anti-India rhetoric. Though he was briefly placed under house arrest, he was let off by the Lahore high court.