File photo of Masood Azhar.

NEW DELHI: Describing the Pulwama terror attack as “heinous and despicable”, India used strong words to ask Pakistan to stop supporting terrorists and called upon all other countries to place Masood Azhar in the UN Security Council’s counter-terrorism sanctions list.

China has consistently stopped Azhar from being banned, as part of its relationship with Pakistan. Every time Azhar has been proposed for a ban in the UN Security Council’s 1267 Committee, China has blocked it.

In its statement, MEA said, the terror attack was “perpetrated by Jaish-e-Mohammed , a Pakistan-based and supported terrorist organisation proscribed by the United Nations and other countries. This terror group is led by the international terrorist Masood Azhar, who has been given full freedom by the government of Pakistan to operate and expand his terror infrastructure in the territories under the control of Pakistan and to carry out attacks in India and elsewhere with impunity.”

Calling for international support against Azhar, India said “we reiterate our appeal to all members of the international community to support the proposal to list terrorists, including JeM chief Masood Azhar, as a designated terrorist under the 1267 Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council and to ban terrorist organisations operating from territories controlled by Pakistan.”

But in all of 2018, India did not push the Azhar case in the UN at all. After the Wuhan summit between Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping, India has been treading on eggshells where China is concerned, going the extra distance to not disturb the fragile peace with China.

This was taken to mean that contentious issues like Masood Azhar was not flagged by India in the UN. The general policy before Wuhan was that India or the US or UK would raise the Azhar issue in the 1267 committee as a way to keep the pressure on China and to expose its support to a terror leader. But in 2018, India eased that pressure.

Thursday’s attack has resurrected the possibility of taking Azhar case back to the UNSC. This could be one of the first responses by the Modi government. Not only Masood Azhar, his brother Abdul Rauf Asghar has also been named as a terror leader to be proscribed. The JeM organisation itself has been proscribed by the 1267 Committee, but Azhar remains out of its ambit.



In Video: Pulwama terror attack: Around 40 CRPF jawans killed, death toll likely to rise