New Delhi: India on Tuesday played a sound clip of 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Sajid Mir telling the attackers to kill foreigners at the Taj hotel while speaking at a United Nation’s counter-terrorism conference. India’s strong responce comes after China on Tuesday blocked a proposal by India and the US at the United Nations to designate Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Sajid Mir, wanted for his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, as a global terrorist. Ministry Of External Affair’s Joint Secretary Prakash Gupta while addressing the UNSC Terror meet said, “Sajid Mir not getting through the Global Listings of UNSC despite several member states supporting the move shows that something is genuinely worng with global counter terrorism architecture.”
He said India doesn’t have the genuine political will to fight the challenge of terrorism if established terrorists like Mir don’t make into UNSC’s global listing due to “petty geopolitical interests”.
As China blocks listing of 26/11 terror attack mastermind Sajid Mir, India plays audio of Pak National at UN counter terror meet; Indian Diplomat @PrakashMEA calls the action “petty politics”, & that ”something genuinely wrong with the global counter terrorism architecture” https://t.co/R6CaMxAZVj pic.twitter.com/RaMGAZPMdv
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) June 21, 2023
Prakash Gupta said the masterminds were still free and enjoying state support. He said the first gap to address was avoiding double standards and good terrorists vs bad terrorists. He said terrorism is always wrong and India will not rest till it is uprooted.
The MEA joint secretary quoted PM Modi’s words from last year and said India was firm in countering terrorism. He said Mir was India’s most-wanted terrorist for his role in the Mumbai attacks. He was the main planner and controller of the attacks. India says China has blocked many attempts to list terrorists in Pakistan.
The US and India had jointly proposed to put Mir, a global terrorist and a leader of the Pakistan-based LeT, on the UN Security Council’s 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee blacklist. This would have subjected him to assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. However, China vetoed the proposal on Tuesday, as it had done before in September last year.
Mir is in his mid 40s and has a USD 5 million reward on his head by the US for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. He was also sentenced to over 15 years in prison by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court in June last year for a terror-financing case. Pakistan had previously claimed that Mir had died, but Western countries were not convinced and asked for proof.
This became a major issue in FATF’s evaluation of Pakistan’s progress on the action plan last year. Mir has been with LeT since around 2001 and was the operations manager for the Mumbai attacks. He also planned a terrorist attack against a Danish newspaper and its employees between 2008 and 2009. The US indicted him in April 2011 and designated him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in August 2012. He is also on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List.
China, which is a close ally of Pakistan, has repeatedly blocked the efforts to sanction Pakistan-based terrorists at the UN Security Council.