Amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan over Islamabad’s denial and duplicity over terror groups flourishing under its watch, a fresh proposal by the US, UK and France has been submitted at the United Nations Security Council or UNSC to designate Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar a global terrorist.
If the proposal is passed, Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed or JeM chief Masood Azhar will get the tag of being a ‘UN-designated global terrorist’, which in turn would subject him to global travel ban, asset freeze and arms embargo.
The fresh proposal, moved on Wednesday by the three permanent veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council, will also get Russia’s backing because Moscow has supported the ban on Masood Azhar in the past. All eyes, however, will be on China, which has repeatedly blocked similar proposals in the past.
The Security Council Sanctions Committee will have 10 working days to consider the fresh proposal submitted by the three members.
The Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed’s latest terror attack was the Pulwama terror attack. Claiming full responsibility for the suicide bombing in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district on February 14, the terror group, whose chief Masood Azhar is allowed to move freely in Pakistan by its government, released a video and photos shortly after the terror attack. 40 soldiers of the Central Reserve Police Force or CRPF were killed in the suicide bombing.
The Masood Azhar-led Jaish-e-Mohammed has carried out a series of terror attacks in India – The 2001 terror attack on the Indian Parliament, the 2016 Pathankot terror attack, the 2016 Uri terror attack, and 2019 Pulwama terror attack to name a few.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, which has been labelled many times by experts as “A country which uses terror as an instrument of state policy,” not only denies any knowledge of terror groups on its soil, but has provided security and protection to global terrorists like Masood Azhar, Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, who roam freely in Pakistan.
Pakistan, which in the past had also denied any knowledge of Osama bin Laden, was caught red-handed when the United States found him in a shelter home, minutes away from a Pakistan Army camp in Abbottabad.
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