The United States on Wednesday praised India for declaring Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed, Mumbai terror attack mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and gangster Dawood Ibrahim terrorists under a new anti-terror law.

“We stand with India and commend it for utilising new legal authorities to designate four notorious terrorists: Maulana Masood Azhar, Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Dawood Ibrahim,” tweeted Alice Wells, the acting assistant secretary of US State Department’s South and Central Asian Affairs bureau. “This new law expands possibilities for joint US-India efforts to combat scourge of terrorism.”

The Union Home Ministry’s move came close to a month after Parliament approved an amendment to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment or UAPA Act, 1967.

The United Nations designated Azhar a global terrorist in May, which came with travel bans, a freeze on assets and an embargo on acquiring arms. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had then termed it a big victory in the fight against terrorism while the Ministry of External Affairs said it was a step in the right direction “to demonstrate the international community’s resolve to fight against terrorism and its enablers”.

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