The Legitimate Desk Masood Azhar
In the fog end of general elections in India, the Narendra Modi led government set massive diplomatic victory after United Nations Security Council declared Masood Azhar as global terrorist.
Modi was widely criticized for the massive Lethpora Pulwama suicide attack in which more than forty Paramilitary CRPF men were killed and India blamed Masood Azhar for the barbaric act.
The decision of UNSC’s 1276 sanctions committee of has come as a boost to BJP led government in India. The pollsters have already predicted that BJP led by Modi is going to win the second term elections and form the government in New Delhi.
The diplomatic victory at UNSC and managing China to lift over its hold on its proposal of declaring Masood Azhar as global terrorist have shut the Modi’s political opponents.
In fact the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also welcomed the decision and termed it India’s diplomatic victory against terrorism. The India was demanding from last ten years that UNSC shall declare Masood Azhar as global terrorist.
While Amercia, UK, France and Germany always welcomed the decision and supported its demand in UNSC, however, China had always opposed it. After Lethpora suicide attack India moved again the resolution to the UNSC where China had opposed it.
However, on Wednesday it was for the first time when China didn’t veto it. The India’s permanent representative to United Nations Syed Akbarudin was first to announce it on his twitter handle and termed it as India’s victory.
The finance minister Arun Jaitley immediately after hearing this news said that India is in safe hands while the BJP’s official twitter handle praised Narender Modi. “Modi hai to mumkin hi”. (Modi is there so is possible), they tweeted.
On the other side some political opponents of Modi, however, said that there was nothing much for India to cheer about it.
Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said in the sanctions committee report there was no mention of Pulwama terror attack and Azhar was punished for attacking NATO forces.
“No mention of terror in Kashmir & no mention of Pulwama. It’s amazing how quickly the sacrifices of the CRPF men were sold down the river to get a symbolic win,” he tweeted.
He said it was wordplay of Chinese diplomats to make both India and Pakistan happy when in reality there is no big achievement.
“The Chinese diplomats must be a happy bunch today. Their wordplay has allowed both India & Pakistan to claim a diplomatic victory. That’s no small achievement,” he said.
However, Jaitley downplayed the allegations and said that India’s consistent perusal of the case at the international forum and the recent developments forced China to give up its position of putting technical hold on Masood Azhar’s listing as international terrorist.
So far china had blocked the move three times in 2009, 2016 and 2017.
What does it mean to be a global terrorist?

A global terrorist: ‘there are different terms of terrorism, it is a charged term. It is often used with the connotation of something that is “morally wrong’’. Of course, anybody who has in a wider spectrum escalated and spread war in peace times, and inflicted violent and terroristic activities of bloodshed, and has supplemented hate mongering is a global terrorist.
The UN committee listed Azhar on May 1, 2019 as being associated with Al-Qaeda for “participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing, or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf of, or in support of”, “supplying, selling or transferring arms and related material to”, “recruiting for”, “otherwise supporting acts or activities of”, and “other acts or activities indicating association with” the JeM.
A UNSC designation will subject Azhar to an assets freeze, travel ban and an arms embargo. An assets freeze under the sanctions committee requires that all states freeze without delay the funds and other financial assets or economic resources of designated individuals and entities.
Why China Was Putting hold
China earlier removed its hold on the proposal moved by France, UK and the US in the UNSC’s 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee in February just days after the deadly Pulwama terror attack.
Beijing put the hold on the proposal on March 13, scuttling yet another attempt to blacklist the JeM chief. The proposal was the fourth such bid at the UN in the last 10 years to list Azhar as a global terrorist.
Prior to that India had even in 2016 again moved the proposal with the P3 – the US, the UK and France in the UN’s 1267 Sanctions Committee to ban Azhar, also the mastermind of the attack on the air base in Pathankot in January, 2016., but again internationally China was the big deter to the resolution by placing the country’s VETO power of not listing Azhar as any global terrorist.
Charges Against Masood Azhar
A known fugitive, 50-year-old Azhar, who formed the JeM in 2000, was branded the brain behind various suicide strikes in India and known to have fine tuned terror tactics which included survey of potential targets before carrying out the attack.
The son of a retired schoolteacher, Masood Azhar was arrested in south Kashmir in 1994 but released with two others in 1999, in exchange for passengers aboard a hijacked Indian Airlines plane.
Azhar then founded Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terrorist group responsible for a number of major attacks on Indian soil, including the suicide bombing that killed dozens of Indian paramilitary personnel in February this year.
The military escalation between India and Pakistan that followed brought the two nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of war.
The US, the UK and France asked the UN Security Council’s Islamic State and al-Qaeda sanctions committee to blacklist Masood Azhar, but China thwarted the effort.
Jaish-e-Mohammed was also involved — along with Lashkar-e-Taiba — in the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament.
JeM Operations
JeM has undertaken a recruitment drive through its students and charity fronts. Talba Al-Murabitoon (Students Movement for Ideological & Geographical Defence of Islam & Pakistan), along with other walong with other wings such as Al Rehmat Trust and Preaching Wing, regularly organizes events in close coordination in order to urge people to wage Jehad according to Sunnat & Shariah and support their action against India.
JeM, under the patronage of Maulana Masood Azhar also organizes events under the banner of Bazm-e-Yousafi, Majlis Wursa-e-Shoda Jammu-Wa-Kashmir, Majlis Dawat-Al-Quran and conferences in the name of killed terrorists to collect funds and radicalize & motivate youth.
While there are several reasons for the u-turn by China now, two seem key: post-Wuhan summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping, India China relations have improved and India’s persistence on Azhar has paid off, and two, combined efforts of the US, the UK and France to push China to change its mind, even threatening to shame it with a public vote at the UNSC.
There is even speculation that Azhar, whom Pakistan’s government claims is very ill, has outlived his usefulness for the Pakistani establishment, which then conveyed to China that it would not oppose the listing.