In September last year, it was learnt that China had put a hold on the proposal to designate Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist and 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks accused Sajid Mir at the UN. Beijing has now blocked the proposal.
India slammed China on Wednesday for trying to stop a United Nations resolution that would have declared Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Sajid Mir a global terrorist and sought for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
India said in a sharply worded statement that if the proposal to blacklist Sajid Mir did not pass despite having the support of several member states, "we have righteous reasons to believe that something is genuinely wrong with the global counter-terrorism architecture." This came hours before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at the UN on International Yoga Day.
“If we cannot 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,” Prakash Gupta, Joint Secretary, UN Political at MEA said while addressing the United Nations' counter-terror meeting.
India, criticising China, stated that it was important to "avoid double standards" and the categorization of terrorists as either "good" or "bad". “A terror act is a terror act. Period. Any justification being used should not be countenanced upon by anybody,” Gupta added, stating the sanctions regime itself needed to be looked at.
Beijing rejected the US- and India-sponsored resolution that would have classified Sajid Mir as a global terrorist and subjected him to asset freezing, travel restrictions, and an arms embargo under the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council. It was learnt in September of last year that China has delayed the UN designation of Mir.
China, an all-weather friend of Islamabad, has consistently blocked attempts to add terrorists with ties to Pakistan to the sanctions list under the UN Security Council's sanctions committee.
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Sajid Mir, believed to be in his mid-40s, is one of India's most wanted terrorists and has a bounty of USD 5 million placed on his head by the United States for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in 2008. A Pakistani anti-terrorism court sentenced Mir to more than 15 years in prison in June of last year in a case involving the financing of terrorism.
In the past, Pakistani authorities had asserted that Mir had passed away, but Western nations had not been persuaded and had demanded proof of his passing. Late last year, when FATF evaluated Pakistan's progress on the action plan, this problem arose as a significant sticking point.
"Mir was LeT’s operations manager for the attacks, playing a leading role in their planning, preparation, and execution,” the US State Department has said.