Pak-based groups linked to terror attacks: India at UN meeting

India raised the links of proscribed Pakistan-based terror groups Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and their proxies to terror attacks ranging from the 2008 Mumbai attacks to the Pahalgam massacre at a United Nations meeting in Vienna and called for the early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.
While delivering India's statement at the session of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ), Niraj Kumar Bansod, a joint secretary of the Union home ministry, emphasised that terrorism is an existential danger to global peace and security.
Raising the role of Pakistan-based terror groups, he said: 'UN-proscribed terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and their proxies have orchestrated attacks on Indian soil, leading to tragic loss of innocent lives.'
'Incidents such as the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the attacks in Uri and Pathankot in 2016, the 2019 Pulwama suicide bombing, and most recently, the heinous terror attack in Pahalgam where 26 tourists were shot dead, remain deeply etched in our national consciousness,' he said.
India reiterated its resolve to eliminate all forms of terrorism and said it has been at the forefront of global efforts to combat the menace. 'We are signatory to 13 sectoral conventions on terrorism adopted by the United Nations, and we strongly advocate for the early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism,' Bansod said.
New Delhi first proposed the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism at the UN General Assembly in 1996, when it was dealing with Pakistan-backed terror in Jammu and Kashmir, and negotiations on the proposed treaty have been held up primarily because UN member states have not been able to agree on the definition of terrorism.
The four-day meeting of the CCPCJ from May 19 was attended by more than 1,300 participants representing 134 member states, 64 non-governmental organisations, 15 intergovernmental organisations and 15 UN entities such as Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Interpol.
The Indian side has stepped up efforts to expose Pakistan's continuing support for terrorism targeting India at such global meetings and mechanisms in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terrorist attack of April 22.
India's statement at the CCPCJ meeting said all forms of terrorism, 'irrespective of the motives behind terrorist act, can never be justified, and the perpetrators and supporters of such acts should be brought to justice'. This was in line with a statement issued by the UN Security Council calling for the perpetrators of the Pahalgam attack to be held accountable.
Bansod also said that India has been an 'active participant in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and other international platforms dedicated to countering the financing of terrorism'.
The statement further highlighted that India has continuously strengthened its legal and enforcement mechanisms to counter the challenges posed by terrorism, illicit drug trafficking, cybercrime, corruption, and other transnational criminal activities. 'These issues are no longer confined by borders; they demand unified and decisive international cooperation,' Bansod said.
Currently, seven teams of political leaders, parliamentarians and former diplomats are travelling across the world to inform key interlocutors of India's new approach to combating cross-border terrorism following the Pahalgam terror attack. India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terrorist infrastructure on Pakistani soil. This triggered four days of intense clashes that ended when India and Pakistan reached an understanding on stopping military actions on May 10.
Indian officials have also hinted that New Delhi will push for placing Pakistan in the 'grey list' of the FATF at the financial watchdog's plenary meet in June by furnishing evidence that Islamabad failed to enforce anti-money laundering and counter-terror reforms and made no headway in prosecuting UN-designated terrorists.
At the meeting in Vienna, India also pointed to the growing threat posed by cybercrime and said the government has adopted an integrated approach to this evolving challenge.
'We have established a robust legal and institutional framework to prosecute cyber offences effectively. The creation of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) has enabled seamless information sharing among law enforcement agencies and relevant stakeholders,' Bansod said.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

First Post

27 minutes ago

• First Post

What may happen next with the US entering the Israel-Iran conflict?

The United States entered the Israel-Iran conflict early Sunday (June 22) with its warplanes attacking Iran's three nuclear sites, namely Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow. With the conflict in West Asia escalating and the rest of the world watching anxiously, here are some likely outcomes read more The United States has launched an attack on the Iranian nuclear sites in West Asia. File image/AP After prevaricating about whether the United States would enter Israel's war on Iran, President Donald Trump finally made a decision. Early Sunday, US warplanes and submarines struck three of Iran's nuclear sites at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, where the Iranians have a uranium enrichment plant buried about 80 metres beneath a mountain. These strikes have to be viewed as part of an overall continuum that began with the Gaza war following Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and then continued with Israel's attacks on Hezbollah (the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon) and the fall of the Iran-backed Assad regime in Syria. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Iran has never been weaker than it is now. And when Trump said it may take two weeks for him to decide whether to bomb Iran, the Israelis likely pushed him to act sooner. We can assume there was a lot of Israeli pressure on Trump to use the massive ordnance penetrators, the 30,000-pound (13,600-kilogram) ' bunker buster' bombs that only the US can deploy with its B2 bombers. Now that Trump has taken the significant step of entering the US in yet another West Asia war, where could things go from here? There are a few possible scenarios. Iran strikes back The Iranians know they don't have the strength to take on the US, and that the Americans can do enormous damage to their country and even put the Iranian regime's stability at risk. This is always the prime consideration of the clerical regime led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – everything else is subordinate to that. To gauge Iran's possible reaction, we can look at how it responded to the first Trump administration's assassination of the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, in January 2020. Iran said there would be a major reaction, but all it did was launch a barrage of missiles at two American bases in Iraq, which caused no US fatalities and very little damage. After that token retaliation, Iran said the matter was closed. Iran's reaction to the new US strikes will likely be along these lines. It probably won't want to get into a tit-for-tat with the US by launching attacks against American facilities in the region. Trump has promised to respond with force: STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Iran, a bully of the West Asia, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier. It's also unclear how long Iran will be able to prosecute this war. This depends largely on how many ballistic missiles and launchers it has left. There are various estimates as to how many ballistic missiles Iran may have remaining in its stockpiles. It was believed to have about 2,000 missiles capable of reaching Israel at the start of the war. Some estimates say Iran has fired 700 of them; others say around 400. Whatever the number is, its stockpiles are dwindling quickly. Israel has also destroyed about a third of Iran's ballistic missile launchers. If Israel is able to destroy all of them, Iran would have very limited ability to fight back. Iran backs down Before the US got involved in the conflict, Iran said it was prepared to negotiate, but it wouldn't do so while Israel was still attacking. So, one scenario is that some sort of compromise can now be worked out, in which Israel announces a ceasefire and Iran and the US agree to resume negotiations on Tehran's nuclear program. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The big problem is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he doesn't trust the negotiating process and he doesn't want to stop Israel's military actions until all of Iran's nuclear facilities have been completely destroyed. He's also been bombing Iran's oil terminals and gas facilities to put even more pressure on the regime. A man looks at flames rising from an oil facility after it appeared to have been struck by an Israeli strike in Tehran. AP But the regime has shown itself to be incredibly determined not to lose face. It was under great pressure at different times during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and never considered surrendering until a US missile mistakenly took down an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 people. Iran then agreed to a UN-brokered ceasefire. But the Iran-Iraq war lasted eight years, causing an estimated one million deaths. And when the then-supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, agreed to the ceasefire, he said it was ' worse than drinking poison'. Given the state of Iran's military capabilities, Khamenei, the current supreme leader, might surrender simply to try to preserve the regime. But this would be quite a climbdown as far as he's concerned, and he has been very obstinate in the past. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The regime is very unpopular, but the Iranian people, in my experience, are strongly patriotic – loyal to their country, if not the regime. Though it's difficult to gauge opinion in a country of 90 million people, a lot of Iranians would not want to be ordered to do anything by the US or Israel, and would rather fight on. Netanyahu has said he wants to create the conditions for the Iranian people to rise up against the regime. But it's worth bearing in mind that the opposite of autocracy is not necessarily democracy. It could possibly be chaos. Iran has a number of different ethnic groups and there may be huge disagreements over what should take the place of the clerical regime, were it to fall. At this stage, the regime will probably be able to hold together. And even if Khameini were to die suddenly, the regime will likely be able to quickly replace him. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Though we don't know his probable successor, the regime has had plenty of time to plan for this. Those in senior positions will also know that a post-Khamenei succession struggle really would put the regime at risk. The US engagement is limited According to the new polling by The Economist and YouGov, released on June 17, 60 per cent of Americans were opposed to joining the conflict between Israel and Iran, with just 16 per cent in favour. Among Republicans, 53 per cent opposed military action. So, these strikes were not an obviously popular move among Americans at this stage. However, if this is an isolated event and succeeds in bringing a swift end to the war, Trump will probably be applauded by a majority of Americans. If the US has to go back with more bombers – or there are serious attacks on US interests in the region – there could be more adverse reactions among Americans. Another question is whether Iran's 400 kilograms of 60 per cent enriched uranium have been destroyed in the US attack. If it hasn't been destroyed, and depending how much damage has been done to its centrifuges, Iran may be able to reconstruct its nuclear program relatively quickly. And it could have more incentive to further enrich this uranium to 90 per cent purity, or weapons-grade level, to build a nuclear device. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Ian Parmeter, Research Scholar, Middle East Studies, Australian National University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

United News of India

27 minutes ago

• United News of India

US law enforcement warns of terrorist attacks risk after strikes on Iran

Washington, June 23 (UNI) The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned of increased risks of terrorist attacks in the next two months related to the US Air Force strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. "The likelihood of violent extremists in the Homeland independently mobilizing to violence in response to the conflict would likely increase if Iranian leadership issued a religious ruling calling for retaliatory violence against targets in the Homeland," the department said in a bulletin. It noted that, according to US law enforcement, many terrorist attacks in the United States were motivated by anti-Semitism. "The ongoing Israel-Iran conflict could contribute to US-based individuals plotting additional attacks," the document says. The DHS also warned of growing risks of cyber threats. "The ongoing Iran conflict is causing a heightened threat environment in the United States. Low-level cyber attacks against US networks by pro-Iranian hacktivists are likely, and cyber actors affiliated with the Iranian government may conduct attacks against US networks," the bulletin says. The alert is in effect for two months, until September 22, it says. UNI SPUTNIK ARN

News18

28 minutes ago

• News18

Sonam Raghuvanshi Hid Weapon, Jewellery At Indore Property; Two Arrested For Aiding Her

Last Updated: Two more suspects, a property dealer and a security guard, were arrested for helping Sonam Raghuvanshi conceal evidence in the Raja Raghuvanshi murder case. Two more people, a property dealer and a security guard, were arrested on Saturday in connection with the Raja Raghuvanshi murder case. According to the details, the property dealer was arrested for concealing a jewellery box belonging to Sonam Raghuvanshi, Raja's wife and the prime accused in the case. The box was hidden in a flat in Indore after the murder last month, it was known. Commenting on the arrests, East Khasi Hills district SP Vivek Syiem said, 'The Meghalaya Police Special Investigation Team (SIT) arrested one Silome James from Bhonrasa toll-gate in Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh while he was trying to flee to Bhopal around 7.30 pm on Saturday." 'He is a property dealer and lessee of a building at Heera Bagh Colony in Indore, where Sonam had stayed and kept the jewellery and other items she took with her after the incident," he said. Later, the SIT nabbed a security guard, identified as Balla Ahirwar, from his native village in Ashok Nagar district of Madhya Pradesh around 2 am on Sunday. He was posted at the property. The box is believed to have contained key evidence linked to the murder, PTI quoted sources as saying. The arrested property dealer led the SIT to the place where he had disposed of all the items of the box by burning, the officer said. A member of the SIT said that Sonam's boyfriend, Raj Kushwaha, owned a firearm, and this was kept at the property along with jewellery and a laptop. At the site where James had burnt the box, there were no signs of the pistol, laptop or any of the jewellery belonging to Raja, he said, adding that a forensic team had also visited the spot and collected all available evidence. The flat was rented out to murder co-accused Vishal Chauhan by James, who runs a property management firm in Indore, they said. On June 13, James told reporters that Chauhan approached him on May 30 and rented the flat for Rs 17,000 per month, signing a formal agreement. However, when the Meghalaya Police later searched the flat, it was found vacant, as per the sources. Sonam stayed in the flat for several days on return from Meghalaya, before eventually surrendering to police in UP on June 8, the sources said. James and Ahirwar were produced before a court in Indore, which remanded them in the transit custody of Meghalaya Police for seven days, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP) Rajesh Dandotiya said. Indore-based transport businessman Raghuvanshi married Sonam on May 11 in Indore, and the couple left for their honeymoon in Meghalaya on May 20. The couple went missing on May 23, and Raja Raghuvanshi's mutilated body was recovered on June 2 from a deep gorge near a waterfall in the Sohra area of East Khasi Hills district. Raja was hacked to death by three men using two machetes near a secluded parking lot close to the famous Weisawdong falls in Sohra, it was later revealed. Sonam, accused of conspiring with her alleged lover to kill her husband, surrendered on June 8 before the police in Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur district, while four other accused have been arrested from different locations in MP and UP. The Meghalaya Police had earlier arrested five persons in connection with the murder — Sonam, her alleged lover Raj Kushwaha and the latter's three friends Vishal Chauhan, Akash Rajput and Anand Kurmi. The five are currently in judicial custody and lodged at a jail in Meghalaya. First Published: June 23, 2025, 10:11 IST