At the United Nations Security Council, China has objected to India’s proposal to blacklist senior Pakistan-based terrorist Abdul Rauf Azhar.
Abdul Rauf Azhar, the brother of JeM chief Masood Azhar, was born in Pakistan in 1974 and has been involved in the planning and execution of numerous terror attacks in India, including the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC814 in 1999, the attack on the Parliament in 2001, and the targeting of the IAF base in Pathankot in 2016.
According to reports, China objected to India’s move to place Abdul Rauf of the JeM on the UN Security Council’s 1267 ISIL and Al Qaida Sanctions list.
The United States sanctioned Rauf Azhar in December 2010. In August last year, China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council with veto power, put a halt to India, and the United States plan to name Rauf Azhar as a global terrorist and subject him to asset freezes, travel bans, and arms embargoes.
Last year, Beijing put on hold suggestions to blacklist Pakistan-based terrorists Hafiz Talah Saeed, Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Shahid Mahmood, and Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Sajid Mir under the Al Qaeda Sanctions regime.
In June last year, China blocked a combined proposal by India and the United States to designate Abdul Rehman Makki, the deputy chief of Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba under the 1267 sanctions committee.
However, the head of the political affairs wing of JuD/LeT, Makki, and the brother-in-law of LeT chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was designated global terrorist by the UN in January 2023 after China lifted its hold on the joint India-US proposal to blacklist him, paving the way for the Security Council’s Al Qaeda sanctions committee to list him through consensus.
During India’s Presidency of the UN Security Council in December 2022, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar singled out Pakistan and China in his remarks to the Council briefing on ‘Global Counterterrorism Approach: Challenges and Way Forward’, claiming that the “contemporary epicenter of terrorism” remains very much active and that “evidence-backed proposals” to blacklist terrorists under sanctions regimes are put on hold without adequate justification.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said, “At one level, we have seen protections that come close to justification. Then, there are evidence-backed proposals that are put on hold without assigning an adequate reason. Conversely, there has even been recourse to anonymity so as to avoid taking ownership of untenable cases”.
In December 2010, the US Treasury designated Abdul Rauf Azhar, a senior leader of Jaish-e Mohammed (JEM), for acting for or on behalf of JEM.
According to the US, a senior leader of JeM, Abdul Rauf Azhar has urged Pakistanis to engage in militant activities.
In 2007, he served as JEM’s interim head, as one of the organization’s most senior commanders in India, and as JEM’s intelligence coordinator.
Azhar was tasked with organizing suicide strikes in India in 2008. He was also a member of JEM’s political wing and a JEM official involved with training camps.
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