According to PTI, China placed a hold on the proposal by India and the US to designate Mahmood as a global terrorist under the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council. (Reuters file photo)China has put on hold a proposal moved by India and the United States in the United Nations to list Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Shahid Mahmood as a global terrorist. According to news agency PTI, this is the fourth instance in as many months that Beijing has blocked bids to blacklist terrorists at the world organisation.
The US Treasury Department had. in 2016, designated Shahid Mahmood and LeT senior leader Muhammad Sarwar as global terrorists.
“These two Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders are responsible for raising and moving funds to support the terrorist group’s operations,” Acting Director Office of Foreign Assets Control John E Smith had said back then.
The decision to hold comes at a time when UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is in India and has paid homage to the victims of the 26/11 attack in Mumbai. The Terror attack carried out by LeT in which over 160 people, including American citizens, were killed.
In 2020, the central government had designated 18 key operatives and leaders of groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Indian Mujahideen (IM) and members of the Dawood Ibrahim gang as individual terrorists under the recently-amended Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
This list included Shahid Mahmood, alias Shahid Mahmood Rehmatullah.
Mahmood was the Pakistan-based deputy chief of proscribed organisation Falah-i-lnsaniyat Foundation (FIF), a front of the LeT.
According to information on the US Department of the Treasury’s website, Mahmood “has been a longstanding senior LeT member based in Karachi, Pakistan, and has been affiliated with the group since at least 2007. As early as June 2015 through at least June 2016, Mahmood served as the vice chairman of Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), a humanitarian and fundraising arm of LeT.”
In 2014, Mahmood was the leader of FIF in Karachi. In August 2013, Mahmood was identified as a LeT publications wing member, the website said.
“Mahmood was previously part of LeT’s overseas operations team led by Sajjid Mir…Additionally, in August 2013, Mahmood was instructed to forge covert links with Islamic organisations in Bangladesh and Burma, and as of late 2011, Mahmood claimed that LeT’s primary concern should be attacking India and America,” the US Department of Treasury said.
(With inputs from PTI)