India has sharply criticised China at the United Nations for blocking proposals to designate Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Sajid Mir, an accused in the 26/11 Mumbai attack, as ‘global terrorist’ for petty geopolitical interests.
China on Tuesday blocked a proposal moved by the US and co-designated by India to blacklist Mir under the 1267 AI Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council as a global terrorist and subject him to assets freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo. Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Mir is wanted for his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks that claimed the lives of 166 innocents, including 26 foreigners.
In a strongly worded statement, Joint Secretary at India’s permanent mission in New York Prakash Gupta said on Tuesday that if efforts to ban terrorists fail due to “petty geopolitical interests”, then “we really do not have the genuine political will to sincerely fight this challenge of terrorism.”
“The first and most critical gap we feel addressing is avoiding double standards and this self-defeating justification of good terrorists versus bad terrorists. Terror act is a terror act, plain and simple. Any justification of any kind being used should not be countenanced by anybody,” he said at the United Nations counter-terror meeting.
Gupta said India has fought against terrorists in practically real-time on a daily basis. He also played an audio clip of Mir, in which he can be heard instructing terrorists from Pakistan during the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks.
Pakistani authorities had in the past claimed Mir had died, but western countries remained unconvinced and demanded proof of his death. This issue became a major sticking point in the Financial Action Task Force’s assessment of Pakistan’s progress on the action plan late last year.
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