NEW DELHI: A day after China converted its technical hold on the proposal for a UN ban on Pakistan-based LeT commander and Mumbai attacks mastermind Sajid Mir into a block, India played a recording at the UN of Mir’s instructions in real time to the 26/11 perpetrators, exhorting them to hunt down foreigners at the Taj hotel and create mayhem in the city.
Without naming China, MEA joint secretary (UN political) Prakash Gupta said the failure to designate Mir as global terrorist meant India had “righteous reasons” to believe that something was genuinely wrong with the global counter terrorism architecture. India had played the same recording at the UNSC Counter Terror Committee meeting it hosted last year and where foreign minister S Jaishankar called upon China to rise above political differences in addressing the issue of terrorism.
China officially blocked the proposal moved by the US and India last year to designate Mir on Tuesday, timing its decision with the arrival of PM Modi at the UN. The proposal was introduced in September last year, only to be put on hold by Beijing, and China could have waited for three more months before announcing its final decision.
“If we can’t get established terrorists who have been banned across global landscapes proscribed by the United Nations – for petty geopolitical interests – then we really do not have the genuine political will to sincerely fight this challenge of terrorism,” said Gupta, speaking at a high-level conference on counterterrorism. Mir has been banned by both India and the US, which has announced a reward of $ 5 million for any information leading to his arrest and conviction.
“A terror act is a terror act – period – any justification being used – should not be countenanced upon by anybody,” he added. Gupta called for plugging the gap in the sanctions regime and to look for improving its working methods to secure the successful listing of genuine and evidence based objective listing proposals. “The second question, we need to ask is: In this day and age of accountability and transparency, can we have genuine listing proposals blocked without giving any reason for the same,” he said, as he asked all member-states to ponder over the “increasing disconcerting trend” to get religion or one kind of religiophobia inadvertently inserted in the terrorism discourse.
Without naming China, MEA joint secretary (UN political) Prakash Gupta said the failure to designate Mir as global terrorist meant India had “righteous reasons” to believe that something was genuinely wrong with the global counter terrorism architecture. India had played the same recording at the UNSC Counter Terror Committee meeting it hosted last year and where foreign minister S Jaishankar called upon China to rise above political differences in addressing the issue of terrorism.
China officially blocked the proposal moved by the US and India last year to designate Mir on Tuesday, timing its decision with the arrival of PM Modi at the UN. The proposal was introduced in September last year, only to be put on hold by Beijing, and China could have waited for three more months before announcing its final decision.
“If we can’t get established terrorists who have been banned across global landscapes proscribed by the United Nations – for petty geopolitical interests – then we really do not have the genuine political will to sincerely fight this challenge of terrorism,” said Gupta, speaking at a high-level conference on counterterrorism. Mir has been banned by both India and the US, which has announced a reward of $ 5 million for any information leading to his arrest and conviction.
“A terror act is a terror act – period – any justification being used – should not be countenanced upon by anybody,” he added. Gupta called for plugging the gap in the sanctions regime and to look for improving its working methods to secure the successful listing of genuine and evidence based objective listing proposals. “The second question, we need to ask is: In this day and age of accountability and transparency, can we have genuine listing proposals blocked without giving any reason for the same,” he said, as he asked all member-states to ponder over the “increasing disconcerting trend” to get religion or one kind of religiophobia inadvertently inserted in the terrorism discourse.
