China has blocked the proposal by India and the US to designate Pakistan-based terrorist and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) key leader Hafiz Talha Saeed as a 'global terrorist,' a day after Beijing did the same on another LeT activist.
LeT leader Hafiz Talha Saeed, 46, is the son of the terror outfit's chief Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind behind the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. Talha Saeed was declared a terrorist by the Indian government in April this year under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), reported ANI News.
This is the fifth time this year that Beijing is putting a hold on India's and US' bids to list Pakistan-based terrorists. On Tuesday, Beijing blockaded the proposal submitted by India and the US to designate LeT leader Shahid Mahmood as a global terrorist under the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council.
In a notification issued on April 8, India's Home Ministry said that Talha Saeed had been involved in recruitment, fund collection, and planning and executing attacks by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in India and Indian interests in Afghanistan. It added that he also has been calling on people during sermons to undertake 'jihad' against India, Israel, the United States of America and Indian interests in other western countries. India added that the Talha, the head of the cleric wing of the terrorist organisation, has also been actively visiting various LeT centres across Pakistan.
The joint proposal was to add Talha Saeed under the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council.
Besides blocking the proposal on Mahmood on Tuesday, Beijing had earlier foiled the bid to blacklist LeT leader Sajid Mir in September and LeT and Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader Abdul Rahman Makki.
Mir is one of India's most wanted terrorists and has a bounty of USD5 million placed on his head by the US for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. In June this year, he was jailed for over 15 years in a terror-financing case by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan, which is struggling to exit the grey list of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Pakistani authorities had in the past claimed Mir had died, but Western countries remained unconvinced and demanded proof of his death.
Whereas Makki is a US-designated terrorist and brother-in-law of Hafiz Saeed.
Though New Delhi and Washington had put in a joint proposal to designate Makki as a global terrorist under the 1267 ISIL and Al Qaida Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council, Beijing placed a hold on this proposal at the last minute. It did the same to Abdul Rauf Azhar, the senior leader of the Pakistan-based terror organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM).
Following the Chinese blockades, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in his address to the high-level UN General Assembly session in September had said that those who politicise the UNSC 1267 Sanctions regime, sometimes even to the extent of defending proclaimed terrorists, do so at their own peril. "Believe me, they advance neither their own interests nor indeed their reputation," he added.
