SRINAGAR: Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, also the mastermind of the Pathankot attack, gave instructions to his outfit members for the suicide bombing on the CRPF convoy in Pulwama from the army base hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, where he is being treated for a terminal illness for the last four months.

His illness has ensured his absence in the last six key meetings of the United Jihad Council (UJC), the Pakistan sponsored umbrella outfit of the jihadi groups it uses against India. However, eight days before his men prepared for Pulwama terror attack, Azhar released an audio message in a feeble voice to the terror outfit’s members. In the audio message, Azhar can be heard asking his men to avenge the death of his nephew Usman, who was killed by security forces in October last year in Tral. “There is nothing more pleasurable than death in this war,”Azhar is heard saying in the tape. He keeps referring how he is braving the chill to egg on men to wage a war against India, reports Times of India.