Taking its duplicity on combating terror to farcical levels, Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has declared a reward of PKR 70 lakh on UN-designated terrorist Maulana Masood Azhar while calling him a “fugitive”. The move comes ahead of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting next month.Pakistan had initially included Azhar in its ‘red book’ in 2021, setting a bounty of PKR 50 lakh. With apprehensions of being placed back on the FATF’s ‘grey list’, Pakistan has now raised the reward by an additional PKR 20 lakh after five years.The move comes despite Islamabad’s long-standing falsehood that Azhar escaped to Afghanistan and was no longer in the country. Even after key family members overseeing Jaish-e-Mohammed operations were eliminated in Operation Sindoor, Pakistan has remained unwilling to acknowledge his presence on its territory or extradite him to India. The assessment of Indian agencies is that he is based in the Sindh province but is often moved to different locations by the ISI to escape an assassination bid.Azhar, who is believed to have escaped the attack on the JeM’s headquarters in Markaz Subhanallah, Bahawalpur, is wanted in India in connection with several attacks, including the 2019 Pulwama bombing in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.Azhar’s profile in the ‘red book’, which lists Pakistan’s most-wanted fugitives and terrorists, doesn’t mention any details including national ID card or passport number, place of birth, sect or any identification mark. “The federal govt of Pakistan is offering a reward of Rs 70,00,000 for information directly leading to apprehension or conviction of Masood Azhar, the son of Khuda Baksh,” it says.As it did in 2021, Pakistan has also maintained that the 26/11 Mumbai attack planners were not on its soil, as per the book. It has retained the profiles of 17 terrorists involved in the planning and financing of the Mumbai attacks, continued from 2021, but the photographs and details of two of the terrorists – Abdul Rehman and Muhammad Khan – have been removed this time. Khan had provided the boat used in the attack.The ‘red book’ in Pakistan is an official document published by law enforcement agencies to ‘list and track’ the country’s most-wanted fugitives and high-profile terrorists.