India Slams Pak, Appeals FATF to Combat Terror Funding at UNSC

Indian rejected China’s interference in the Jammu and Kashmir matter on Pakistan’s behest at the UNSC meeting.

File image of the UN Security Council.

(Photo Courtesy: WIkimedia Commons)

India brought Pakistan under the spotlight at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Thursday, 6 August, over its continued patronage to terrorism and terrorist organisations, and also hit out at the neighbouring country for unsuccessfully internationalising the Kashmir issue.

India also said that the perpetrator of the 1993 Mumbai blasts, Dawood Ibrahim, was now living in Pakistan and being harboured by a country that is “a hub for arms trafficking and narcotics trade, along with proscribed terrorist entities”.

“An organised crime syndicate, the D-Company, that used to smuggle gold and counterfeit currencies transformed into a terrorist entity overnight causing a series of bomb blasts in the city of Mumbai in 1993. The attack resulted in the loss of more than 250 innocent lives and damage to property worth millions of dollars. The perpetrator of that incident also (Dawood Ibrahim), unsurprisingly, continues to enjoy patronage in a neighboring country, a hub for arms trafficking and narcotics trade, along with other terrorists and terrorist entities that have been proscribed by the United Nations,” India said during the debate. 

With this statement, India also increased its pressure on Pakistan and appealed to the UNSC to help combat the problem of money laundering and terrorist financing in the region by coordinating with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) which has played a significant role in this field.

“India has been a victim of terrorism sponsored from across our border. We experienced first-hand cruel linkage between transnational organised crime and terrorism,” India said at the meeting.

China Sides With Pakistan

To add to the above, China also raised the issue of the situation in Jammu and Kashmir at Pakistan’s behest. India firmly rejected China’s interference in its internal matters and asked China to draw more coherent conclusions before such “infructuous attempts”.

Anurag Srivastava, India’s official spokesperson at the meeting said, “We have noted that China initiated a discussion in the UN Security Council on issues pertaining to the Indian Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir. This was not the first time that China has sought to raise a subject that is solely an internal matter of India.”

“As on such previous occasions, this attempt, too, met with little support from the international community. We firmly reject China’s interference in our internal affairs and urge it to draw proper conclusions from such infructuous attempts,” he added.

This is the third time the issue has been raised without a conclusive outcome.

What played in India’s favour was that four of the five permanent members of the council in – US, UK, France and Russia – sided with India on China’s attempt to raise the Kashmir issue.