Crime & Justice

UN lists Pakistan-based kin of alleged Mumbai attack mastermind as global terrorist

Islamabad, Jan 17 (EFE).- The United Nations Security Council has listed a Pakistan-based Islamist militant as a global terrorist a year after China blocked the move by India and the United States.

Abdur Rehman Makki, one of the top leaders of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group, blamed by India for insurgent activities in the disputed Kashmir region, was listed by the UN on Monday.

The militant leader was arrested in May 2019 by the Pakistani government and was under house arrest in Lahore.

In 2020, a Pakistani court convicted him of terrorism financing and sentenced him to prison.

The LeT’s frontal charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), is banned in Pakistan.

“Since Jamaat-ud-Dawa was banned, we are not active and hence not issuing a response to the ban,” Ahmed Nadeem, a former Jamaat spokesperson, told EFE.

Makki, who coordinated the LeT’s political affairs, was listed for “raising funds, recruiting and radicalizing youth to violence and planning attacks in India, particularly in Kashmir,” a UNSC statement said.

Wanted by India, Makki is the brother-in-law of LeT chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the alleged mastermind of a militant attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people in 2008.

The UN statement said Makki was involved in the four-day Mumbai carnage for which Saeed, a known firebrand Islamist cleric, is serving jail terms in Pakistan.

India and the US had already listed Makki as a terrorist under their domestic laws.

India welcomed the move by the UN Security Council.

“Threats from terrorist organizations in the region remain high and listings and sanctions by the UNSC, are an effective tool to curb such threats and dismantle terror infrastructure in the region,” India foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said in a statement.

“India remains committed to pursuing a zero tolerance approach to terrorism and will continue to press the international community to take credible, verifiable and irreversible action against terrorism.”

Last year, China blocked the UN move proposed by India and the US to list the Pakistani militant leader as a designated terrorist.

The UN move has led to assets freeze, a travel ban, and an arms embargo against the militant leader. EFE

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