Zero tolerance to beat terror-crime nexus: India at UN

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21: India has called for “zero-tolerance bereft of double standards” for the world to effectively combat the threat posed by the evolving compact between terrorism and organized crime, and focus specially on developing a common strategy to curb the use of the cyberspace and “greater rigor and transparency” in use of all available tools.

Pakistan was not mentioned, but did not need to be. It has for long hosted Dawood Ibrahim, the underworld don behind the 1993 Mumbai bomb explosions who epitomizes the terror-crime nexus.

India has sought the extradition of Ibrahim at the minimum as proof of Pakistan’s claims of doing enough to combat terrorism. It hasn’t yet. Its terror-crime network, specially to fund terrorism, is under scrutiny of Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international watchdog.

The reference to “greater rigor and transparency” in the use of UN tool already available to combat terrorism, in this instance, is a committee set up by the Security Council to sanction terrorists. Its opaque processes have been used by China to block the designation of Pakistan-based terrorists.

But neither Pakistan nor China was mentioned.“The terror-crime nexus is an existential global threat, the contours of which are mutating everyday,” Syed Akbaruddin, India’s permanent envoy to the UN said at a high-level meeting of the UN and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on Tuesday.

“To combat this menace we will all need to keep ahead of the new trends and technologies - something that can only be achieved if we work together, with a zero-tolerance approach.”

UN-designated terrorist outfits such as Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad and others like al Qaeda, the Islamic State continue to “destabilize the region” through their use of the cyberspace.

Outlining the role of FATF and other institutions and tools of combating money in place, Akbaruddin said the UN needs to increase cooperation and coordination with such bodies.