Jaish chief Masood Azhar confined to his Bahawalpur headquarters

Lahore, Dec.9 (ANI): Pakistani authorities have placed restrictions on the movement of Maulana Masood Azhar, the chief of the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), by confining him to his multi-storied concrete compound in the Model Town area of Bahawalpur.

The News quoted well-placed official sources as saying that Azhar's activities have been restricted in the wake of the Indian Government's recent demand that he be handed over to New Delhi.

The Prime Minister's Adviser on Interior Affairs, Rehman Malik, was quoted as saying in Islamabad last week that India has given to Pakistan a list of three persons-Maulana Masood Azhar, Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon-for their immediate extradition.

Official sources say India has sought the arrest and extradition of Masood Azhar while citing a 1989 agreement signed by the director-general of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the director-general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) which binds both the agencies to collaborate with each other, to trace out the most wanted terrorists and criminals and hand them over to their respective counterpart.

Azhar is wanted by the Indian CBI for his alleged involvement in the 2001 attacks on Indian parliament which brought the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours to the brink of war.

Azhar had been serving time in an Indian jail for Kashmir-related militancy but had to be released by the Indian government in 2000 in exchange for passengers of an Indian airplane which had been hijacked by some Kashmiri militants and taken to Kandahar. Soon after his release, he discarded the Harkatul Mujahideen (HuM) to launch the Jaish-e-Mohammad. (ANI)