Indian Condemns China’s Stand On Masood Azhar

India on 14 April, slammed the use of the “hidden veto” and demanded accountability, saying the UN’s general members are “never ever” informed of the reason for not requesting to appeals for sanctioning terrorists, after China blocked its bid at the UN to ban JeM chief Masood Azhar.

Syed Akbaruddin, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN strongly criticised the the functioning of the UN Security Council’s al-Qaida and Taliban sanctions committee saying “The procedures of unanimity and anonymity of the Al Qaeda, Taliban and ISIS Sanctions Committees need to be revisited. The procedures of unanimity and anonymity result in a lack of accountability,”

Although he did not name China, Syed Akbaruddin said none except these 15 members are told of who is it that has wielded the veto in a specific instance. He went on to say that the sanctions committees need to foster tangible support for greater responsiveness to member states’ requests for preventive listings to counter terror.

Following the Pathankot attack in January, India had written to the UN calling for swift action to list the chief of the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) under the UN Sanctions Committee.

The Counter- Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) considered the Indian submission for technical aspects. The team then with the support of the US, UK and France had sent it to all the members.

All were told that if there are no objections, the designation will be announced after the expiry of the deadline but China at the last moment stopped the UN sanctions committee from designating Azhar as a terrorist, maintaining that the case “did not meet Security Council’s requirements”.