New Delhi: China once again supports Pakistan terrorism, by putting on hold a proposal by India and US at the United Nations to list Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Shahid Mahmood as a global terrorist. The huge investment in the terrorism-supportive country Pakistan falls China weak to work against terrorism and take steps against some big terrorist heads.
Notably, this was the fourth time in the past months Beijing has held bids to blacklist terrorists based in Pakistan under the UNSC sanctions regime. The US Treasury Department designated Mahmood a global terrorist in December 2016.
For the unversed, back in 2020, the central government had designated 18 key operatives and leaders of groups including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Indian Mujahideen (IM) and gang members of Dawood Ibrahim as individual terrorists under the amended Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
Shahid Mahmood – Identified as a long-time senior member of LeT, Shahid Mahmood has been a member of the terrorist group since 2007. In 2013, the US government’s Treasury Department under the Obama administration identified him as a LeT publications wing member.
Mahmood is a close associate of Sajid Mir, the terror mastermind behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and whose designation was also blocked by China in September at the UNSC. According to a press release in 2016, Mahmood visited Bangladesh to ‘distribute funds to a Burmese migrant camp’ for facilitating LeT recruitment.
As per reports, Mahmood worked for the “humanitarian wing” of LeT, the Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) which allegedly raises funds for terrorism under the guise of humanitarian causes.
(Vinayak)