The United Nations Security Council’s 1267 sanctions sub-committee on Wednesday rejected names of two Indians that Pakistan had proposed to be brought under the sanctions regime against terrorists and terror groups, ANI reported. Indian diplomat TS Tirumurti tweeted that Pakistan’s attempt to “politicise” the 1267 committee process had been blocked by several council members

The UNSC committee decided to block the designations of Angara Appaji and Gobinda Patnaik, who are among four Indian nationals that Pakistan alleged formed an “Indian terror syndicate” in Afghanistan, according to The Hindu. They were also accused of “financing, sponsoring and organising terrorism” inside Pakistan by providing financial, technical and material support to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and other proscribed terror groups.

The UNSC led by the the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Belgium decided to block, or reject Pakistan’s move after Islamabad failed to produce evidence to back up its allegations.

“Pakistan’s blatant attempt to politicize 1267 special procedure on terrorism by giving it a religious colour, has been thwarted by UN Security Council,” Tirumurti, the Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, said. “ We thank all those Council members who have blocked Pakistan’s designs.”

There was no immediate response from Pakistan.

Besides Appaji and Patnaik, the designation of two other Indian nationals – Venumadhav Dongara and Ajoy Mistry – proffered by Pakistan, was blocked earlier this year. The United States put a technical hold on the listing of Dongara on June 19, while Mistry’s name had been blocked by US, UK, France, Germany and Belgium on July 16.

When the US had blocked the listing of Dongara, the Pakistan Foreign Office had expressed their “disappointment”.

The move by Pakistan was widely perceived as retaliation against India, after the UNSC panel approved the listing of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist. China had previously put a hold on the listing of Azhar four times, before joining the consensus in May 2019.

In June, global terror-financing watchdog Financial Action Task Force had decided to keep Pakistan in the “grey list” for failing to check the flow of funds to terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. Pakistan was put on FATF’s “grey list” in 2018 and given a 27-point Action Plan to implement in order to be taken off of it.

In October 2019, the watchdog indicted Pakistan for failing to deliver on 22 out of 27 targets. The task force also warned Pakistan that it would be blacklisted if it failed to achieve the targets by February 2020.

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