Pakistan Files Requests To Delete Names Of 6 Terrorists Sanctioned By UNSC

NEW DELHI: In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic times, Pakistan is still desperately pursuing its terror politics. The Pakistan government has approached the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for deletion of six terrorists sanctioned by the world’s top security panel, the UNSC 1267 committee.

The attempt comes weeks after reports suggest that Islamabad had been quietly removing names from its domestic terror watch list.

It is likely that Islamabad may file more requests so that UNSC can process it by the end of 2020, a senior official told a leading national daily.

Presently, 130 terrorists are sanctioned by the UNSC, and 19 of them are in Pakistan. Of these 19, Pakistan has asked to remove names of six terrorists.

Just last month, when UNSC sanctions monitoring team had visited Islamabad, Pakistan had said that it couldn't find most terrorists as the security council did not have complete and accurate information about them. The team, then, asked Pakistan to file for deletion of they thought the entry was "inappropriate".

Diplomats have told the officials that Pakistan's push for deletion is based on the grounds that it believes that China will back its request. Over the years, Beijing had blocked India's effort to designate chief of the Jaish-e-Mohammad terror group Masood Azhar as a global terrorist.

It was only after the Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF troopers died that Beijing gave in.

China later gave it back by supporting Islamabad's claim that four Indian professionals working in Afganistan were terrorists under the UN Security Council’s 1267 Al Qaida sanctions.

The name of Kulbhushan Jadhav must be recalled in this matter. The ex-Navy officer is still in a jail in Pakistan and sentenced to death in a secret trial that India called “premeditated murder”. The International Court of Justice gave out a verdict last year to have the sentence “effectively” reviewed by an independent body.

Indians diplomats believe that Pakistan's deletion move is linked to the meeting of the terror financing watchdog Financial Action Task Force. It was earlier scheduled to take place in June which was later deferred.

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