Another Pak terrorist’s listing in UN blocked

STICKING to the regular pattern, China on Tuesday blocked yet another joint proposal by the US and India at the United Nations to designate a Pakistani radical as global terrorist. Sajid Mir — who is wanted by India for his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and carries a US bounty of $5 million — has become the fifth Pakistan-based terror accused to have been prevented by China from being blacklisted as a global terrorist in the UN Security Council’s 1267 list of terror entities in the past few months. Interestingly, a Pakistan court jailed Mir, an LeT leader, in June last year for over 15 years in a terror-financing case as the country made efforts to exit the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).Advertisement

India has, quite rightly, reacted sharply to the development precipitated by China. As the facilitation of such hindrances sends out the message that extremists can get away with impunity, India’s question on the efficacy of the ‘architecture of global counter-terrorism’ merits an answer. If the big talk of cooperation and pacts made to end terrorism at various international fora by the world polity are to meet hurdles at the high table, a revisit to the process is called for. India’s efforts to bring to book Mir suffer a setback with China’s blockage: it has been denied the opportunity to subject Mir to consequences, including a stringent trial with a freezing of assets, ban on travel and arms embargo, which the tag of a global terrorist entails.

India is already reeling under these tactics, which China deployed recently too to put on hold Indo-US proposals for the terror listing of dreaded Pakistani terrorists Shahid Mahmood, Abdul Rehman Makki and Abdul Rauf Azhar. Putting geopolitical interests over principles, Beijing has again come to the aid of Islamabad, and this will only aggravate the India-China hostilities.