UN curbs on terrorists: India flags China's blocking game

India has called upon the international community to deal with the menace of terrorism unequivocally and resolutely as China shielded two more operatives of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) based in Pakistan from the United Nations sanctions.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government will host a meeting of the United Nations Security Council’s Counter Terrorism Committee in Mumbai and New Delhi on October 28 and 29. The meeting is likely to see India tacitly hitting out at China for blocking the moves to impose UN sanctions on terrorists based in Pakistan.

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A source in New Delhi told DH that India could utilize the meeting to stress that the practice of blocking proposals for imposing sanctions on terrorists and terrorist organisations, without giving any justification, should end.

“The growing menace of terrorism calls for adoption of zero-tolerance approach,” Ashish Sharma, a diplomat at India’s Permanent Mission at the United Nations, said, participating in a meeting at the headquarters of the international organization in New Delhi. “(The) Member States must take unequivocal and resolute position against terrorism, to prevent and combat threats to human rights, fundamental freedoms and democracy,” he said, presenting the views of the Government of India at the meeting of the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly.

New Delhi’s call to the nations to take unequivocal stands against terrorism came after China on Tuesday and Wednesday blocked moves by India and the United States at the UN Security Council to designate the two men based in Pakistan as individuals linked to Al Qaeda, Taliban and Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL).

New Delhi and Washington D.C. wanted to bring LeT founder Hafiz Saeed’s son Talha Saeed and its front Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation’s deputy chief Shahid Mehmood under the full-spectrum UN sanctions, including assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. China, however, put “technical hold” on the two separate proposals moved by India and the US, thus blocking the moves to impose UN sanctions on them.

China earlier this year similarly shielded three other terrorists based in Pakistan from the UN sanctions – Abdul Rahman Makki and Sajid Mir of the LeT and Abdul Rauf Asghar of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).

Ruchira Kamboj, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, will next week host the representatives from 14 other Security Council members in Mumbai and New Delhi. India is expecting China’s Permanent Representative to the UN, June Zhang, or any of his two deputies, Geng Shuang and Dai Bing, to take part in the meetings in Mumbai and New Delhi.

“It is most regrettable that genuine and evidence-based listing proposals pertaining to some of the most notorious terrorists in the world are being placed on hold. Double standards and continuing politicization have rendered the credibility of the sanctions regime at an all-time low,” Kamboj had told the Security Council on August 9 last.

Beijing in the past had similarly used “technical holds” for years to block New Delhi’s repeated moves to get the UNSC impose sanctions on Masood, the leader of the JeM based in Pakistan and the mastermind of several terrorist attacks in India, including the one on the paramilitary personnel in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir on February 14, 2019. China had finally in May 2019 allowed the Security Council to move against the radical cleric based in Pakistan.

China had earlier also blocked India’s moves to get the UN sanctions imposed on the LeT commander Zaki Ur Rehman Lakhvi and the Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin – both based in Pakistan.

The relations between India and China hit a new low over the past two years, ever since another military stand-off between the two nations started in eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020. Though protracted negotiations between India and China resulted in withdrawal of troops from some of the face-off points, a complete resolution of the stand-off still appears to be distant.