Pakistan on Wednesday expressed “disappointment” over US blocking of a proposal by the UN Security Council’s sanction committee to proscribe an Indian national. Pakistan wanted the UNSC to list four Indians as terrorists.
Pakistan urges UNSC body to list 4 Indians as terrorists https://t.co/CL8JCtU9Dp
— The Frontier Post (@TheFrontierPost) June 24, 2020
“We are disappointed that Pakistan’s proposal to designate Venumadhav Dongara as a terrorist has been objected to,” a Foreign Ministry statement said without naming the US.
Pakistan and China demanded Indians to be listed as “terrorists”
China and Pakistan had proposed the designation of four Indian nationals, working in Afghanistan, in 2019 under the UN 1267 Sanctions List, Pakistan had provided evidence first to Afghanistan and then to the international body that these four Indians working under the cover of routine engineers were involved in supporting acts of terrorism inside Pakistan.
Pakistan has witnessed hundreds of acts of terrorism – including the brutal terror attack against the Army Public School children in Dec 2014 – managed from inside Afghanistan. Pakistani agencies had long collected information and shared with the US officials of the involvement of Indian citizens (working in Afghanistan) sponsoring and facilitating these attacks.
Indian citizens working for Indian Intelligence Agencies had disguised themselves as construction workers and engineers. Americans routinely ignored the information provided by the Pakistanis. In the case of these four Indians, Pakistanis were able to lodge FIRs (First Information Reports) in Afghanistan on their activities. Realising that these men will be arrested, Indians quickly exited them from Afghanistan. These men are now in India – United Nations Security Council was told.
These individuals – namely Venumadhav Dongara, Ajoy Mistry, Gobinda Patnaik, and Angara Appaji – according to the statement, were “financing, sponsoring and organizing terrorism inside Pakistan by providing financial, technical and material support to terrorist groups” including the Tehree-e-Taliban Pakistan, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, and others.
Read more: Kulbhushan pops up as India-Pakistan spar at the UN
Washington blocks Pakistani & Chinese move in UNSC
Washington, however, had informed the five permanent UN Security Council (UNSC) members on Friday that it was officially blocking, and thus terminating, a proposal to proscribe an Indian national by the UNSC 1267 Sanctions Committee, according to Indian media.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1267 (UNSC-1267) was first adopted unanimously on 15 October 1999 in the context of Afghanistan and Al Qaeda terrorism. After recalling resolutions 1189 (1998), 1193 (1998) and 1214 (1998) on the situation in Afghanistan.
UNSC designated Osama bin Laden and associates as terrorists and established a sanctions regime to cover individuals and entities associated with Al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden and/or the Taliban wherever located.
The regime has since been reaffirmed and modified by a dozen further UN Security Council Resolutions. This regime is composed of a UN Security Council Committee, a “consolidated list” of people and entities it has determined as being associated with Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, and laws which must be passed within each member nation in order to implement the sanctions.
The Committee receives reports from each nation as to how the work is proceeding, and is able to vary the conditions imposed on any individual as it sees fit. India, with the help of United States, has successfully used UNSC-1267 to target Kashmir related militants as part of its strategic thinking against Pakistan.
China was often forced to defend Pakistan in situations created by Indian and the United States. While evidence provided by India was often not satisfactory as per the standards required but given open support by the United States and western allies India kept making progress.
Now Pakistan and China have turned tables on India and the United States inside the United Nations Security Council. Washington is now compelled to come to India’s aid as in case of Venumadhav Dongara, against which a FIR exists in Afghanistan and he has escaped to India without letting the Afghan police complete its investigations.
Other three Indias also escaped to India. Pakistan and China hope that the listing requests of the other three Indian nationals would be given due consideration by the committee in an objective and transparent manner.
India fanning flames of terrorism in Pakistan: Pakistan FO
“Taking advantage of the prolonged conflict in our neighborhood, India has fomented terrorism inside Pakistan by providing training, financial and material support to terrorist groups to kill innocent people in Pakistan,” the Foreign Ministry statement added.
“These Indian nationals are now residing in India with impunity which vindicates Pakistan’s position that India is a state-sponsor of terrorism,” it concluded.
In May 2019, India, with the help of the US and France, had managed to get Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of Jaish-e-Mohammad, a militant outfit New Delhi accused of being involved in 2008 deadly Mumbai attacks, as a global terrorist by the UNSC sanction committee.
Read more: How RAW uses ‘Terrorism’ as a tool to pose threat to Pakistan’s viability?
India increasing tensions with Pakistan: reduces diplomatic staff to half
Already strained relations between the two sides hit a new low after New Delhi’s scrapping of the longstanding special status of the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region last August — the prime bone of contention between the two arch rivals.
India-China standoff, beginning in May 2020, has further strained relations between New Delhi and Islamabad. Pakistani analysts believe that Indian PM, Narendra Modi, humiliated by Chinese incursions in Eastern Ladakh wants to increase tensions with Pakistan to divert public attention from difficult negations with China.
Pakistani High Commission in Delhi suddenly became focus on Indian anger in May – according to Pakistani analysts in Islamabad. In a latest sign of further escalating tensions, the two countries on Tuesday decided to reduce by half staff at each other’s high commissions. Meanwhile, India has accused Pakistan of harbouring terrorists, a claim which was denied by Pakistan. Instead, Pakistan shot back by asking the UNSC to list four Indians as terrorists.
“Pakistan categorically rejects India’s malicious assertions based on a complete distortion of facts to advance its false and self-serving narrative. Even the remarks of the Prime Minister of Pakistan have been completely twisted. This mischievous attempt is highly condemnable,” said spokeswoman Aisha Farooqui, responding to a statement on Friday by India’s Foreign Ministry.
Kulbushan Jadhav: among a long line Indian terrorists
Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav alias Hussain Mubarak Patel, is an Indian national who was arrested in the Pakistani province of Balochistan on charges of terrorism and spying for India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing.
He is a serving officer in the Indian Navy, and was caught leading and proving assistance to separatist elements in Balochistan, who were fighting against Pakistan’s valiant armed forces.
Read more: Why India always accuses Pakistan for terrorism?
He was sentenced to death in 2017 over charges of espionage by a military court in Pakistan; however, India took the case to the International Court of Justice, which stayed the execution in a ruling in 2019. A pertinent point here is that Pakistan had a recorded statement of Jadhav confessing to terrorism in Pakistan.
Jadhav is only a cog in the wheel of Indian spies who support, incite and fan the flames of terrorism in Pakistan. Under the cover of its considerable diplomatic clout, India infiltrates many agents through the porous border, who immediately get to work to achieve their goal of destabilising Pakistan.
The UNSC and other organizations have been unwilling to support Pakistan’s case, and have repeatedly sided with India in what has been a severe miscarriage of justice.
GVS News Desk with additional input from Anadolu and other agencies.
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