india

Updated: Nov 27, 2019 10:08 IST

India has informed the US and its other friends in the UN Security Council (UNSC) about blatant attempts by Pakistan with the help of its all-weather ally China to, first, accuse Indian expats working in Afghanistan of terror crimes and then get them listed as global terrorists by the 1267 sanctions committee, diplomats and officials in intelligence agencies said. To date, the 1267 committee has listed 130 Pakistanis and 25 entities based in that country for their role in global terror. Following the May listing of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Masood Azhar, despite Pakistan’s best efforts to prevent it, the country has been desperately trying to get back at India. Expats working on reconstruction projects in war-ravaged Afghanistan are a soft target.

In the past two months, Pakistan, with the help of China has submitted proposals to designate six Indians as global terrorists. The most recent additions are Raghavchari Parthasarthy and B. Sudhakar Pediredla, both working as storekeepers for KEC International at Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan, the officials cited in the first instance added on condition of anonymity. Fearing the worst, Parthasarthy has been brought back to India but Sudhakar is yet to be traced. The company is involved in laying transmission lines and both men belong to Telangana.

While the US has blocked two proposals supported by China, four more Indian proposals are pending before the 1267 committee. The two blocked ones concern Venumadhav Dongara and Ajoy Mistry; the two others pending before the committee are Appaji Angara and Gobinda Patnaik Duggivalasa. And almost all of them have been accused of involvement in a terror attack in Peshawar. Both Angara and Duggivalasa are back in India, according to the officials. All of those brought back were evacuated, some overnight, by India from Kabul.

UN watchers say that separately, Pakistan is trying to get the terror lists involving its nationals and entities reduced by citing them as killed or neutralized in drone attacks or counter-insurgency operations. At the same time, it is targeting India to show that its neighbour is no different when it comes to global terror. But apparently the play is not so simple.

Counter-terror operatives believe that this is a Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) ploy to weed out those who it believes are working for Indian security agencies in Afghanistan. A Pakistan controlled Afghanistan (via the Taliban) is also in the interest of Beijing as it is will give stability to the Middle Kingdom’s long term strategic plans to reach Arabian Sea and mouth of Persian Gulf via the Karakoram Highway.

According to Indian diplomats, the US and other allies in UNSC are watching the latest Pakistani game unfold in the 1267 and are expected to call out Islamabad for this blatant mischief. What is of larger concern is the backing of China for these proposals after US and France made it agree to the designation of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as terrorist by the 1267 committee last May 1. A terminally ill Azhar has now handed over the reins of the Sunni terrorist group to his younger brother Mufti Rauf Asghar.