Pak terror & UN’s helplessness
FOURTEEN years after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar spoke some bitter truths about how ineffectual the UN has been in stamping out cross-border terrorism. Speaking at the UN’s Counter-Terrorism Committee meeting in Mumbai — at Taj Hotel, the scene of the greatest devastation in the November 2008 attack — Jaishankar made a presentation during which an audio recording of Sajid Mir, one of the attack planners, speaking to the terrorists was played. ‘…the key conspirators and planners of the 26/11 attack continue to remain protected and unpunished,’ Jaishankar said, adding that the Security Council had not been able to act ‘in some cases because of political considerations’. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken seconded this when he said: ‘We have worked with India to put forward nominations to designate several terrorists through the UN 1267 Resolution. All relevant parties should support these designations. No nation can stand in their way.’
Mir is a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist whose listing as a global terrorist was blocked by China at the UN last month. Wang Yanhua, Deputy Consul General at the Chinese consulate in Mumbai, rightly inferred which ‘nation’ was being referred to and asked the countries to ‘avoid mutual accusations and politicising technical issues’. The 26/11 attack, in which 10 terrorists from Pakistan killed 166 people, has become hostage to vested interests of nations, undermining the UN resolve to deal with terrorism. The issue is all the more sensitive because there is evidence that the attack was planned, facilitated and directed by army officials such as Col R Sadatullah of Pakistan’s Special Communications Organisation, a telecommunication agency run by the army.
Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving terrorist from the group of 10, was hanged in 2012 after a trial in India. However, the plotters of the attack — including members of the Pakistani army and LeT co-founder Hafiz Saeed — have managed to escape punishment. It was only due to the pressure by the Financial Action Task Force, the global watchdog against money-laundering and terrorist financing, that Saeed was convicted on charges of terror financing and given a 33-year jail sentence. However, Pakistan has failed to act against the plotters, confirming the suspicion that they are members of the army. This is a sad commentary on the state of the UN’s effectiveness.
