Masood Azhar travelled to UK, Gulf, Africa to collect funds for Kashmiri militants

Terror mastermind Masood Azhar had undertaken a month-long sojourn to England to collect funds for militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir and received Rs 15 lakh (Pakistani currency), though he got a "very poor" response while travelling to Sharjah and Saudi Arabia before arriving in India in 1994.

Azhar, the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammad, responsible for a series of terror strikes in India including the attack on Parliament in 2001 and a CRPF convoy in Pulwama last month, had procured a Pakistani passport in his real name and original address in 1986 and had extensively toured African and Gulf countries where he realised that the Arab nations were not sympathetic to the "Kashmir cause".

According to Azhar's interrogation report available with security agencies here, he had visited the UK in October 1992.

Mufti Simail, a cleric at a mosque at Southall in London, had facilitated his travel. Originally from Gujarat, Simail had studied at Darul-Ifta-Wal-Irshad in Karachi.

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