UN rejects Indian proposal to add Pak addresses on sanctions list

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan announced on Tuesday that the United Nations Security Council has rejected the Indian proposal to add three new addresses of Pakistan in the narrative summary of Dawood Ibrahim in its ISIL (Daesh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo.

“This information provided to the Committee by India was false and was motivated by the Indian aim to malign Pakistan and undermine its exemplary efforts to curb terrorism”, spokesman at the Foreign Office said in a statement.

He added that as for any previous reference in the narrative summary, all such references were factually incorrect and baseless. It was an embarrassing day for India today, when the United Nations informed it that the three of the nine places cited by India as addresses of underworld don Dawoold Ibrahim in Pakistan have been found incorrect by a United Nations committee, which has removed these from its list.

In evidence to show that Dawood Ibrahim is holed up in Pakistan, a dossier prepared by India had listed nine residences of the underworld don in that country and stated that he is known to frequently change his locations and addresses there.

In the amendment, the Committee has stricken through an address that was later found to be similar to that of a residence belonging to Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi in Islamabad. Earlier last year there were red faces all around in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs when one of the addresses given to the UN was that of the residence of Islamabad's envoy to the UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi.

Lodhi had shrugged away these allegations and did not offer any remarks , but The News had told the Indian media that this Lodhi residence  has been with Lodhi’s family for decades, built by her parents in the early 1970s.

Consequently the UN Security Council’s al Qaida Sanctions Committee has dropped Ambassador Lodhi’s residence address. It is mind boggling as how this emerging regional power trips over itself and provides addresses of highly respectable Pakistanis to the UN. The Indian High Commission in Islamabad could easily verify that this was an incorrect address as the Ambassador’s residence is no ordinary one, where VVIPs are seen frequently driving up when she is in residence.

However, the six other addresses provided by India have not been amended by the UN.  India, in a dossier, had cited these nine addresses as those frequented by Dawood. According to the UN, "The amendment also strikes through other addresses." God alone knows which honorable souls live in these residences, and New Delhi should have the courage to apologize to unsuspecting Pakistani citizens.

The Hindu had reported last year that the dossier details “new residences purchased by Dawood Ibrahim”, and lists a property in Karachi “close to the residence of Bilawal Zardari” and another one with the address in Islamabad. It is this house in one of Islamabad’s most upmarket addresses that seems similar to the address of one of Pakistan’s best known diplomats, former Ambassador to the U.S. and currently the Pakistani Ambassador to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi.

As usual the UN dragged its feet to verify that New Delhi had provided wrong addresses and in fact by publishing them earlier had put to risk lives of those who inhabited these homes. According to the UN, on 22 August 2016, the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 1267 (1999), 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015) enacted the amendments specified with underline and strikethrough in the entry" concerning Dawood on its ISIL (Daesh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo,” it said. The UN can seek permission and knock on the doors of those homes which they say belong to Dawood. Anyone but the wanted don, is likely to answer the door.