India has attacked a United Nations special rapporteur over a counter-terrorism report that refers to fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company as an “India-based” criminal syndicate, asserting the report suffers from “serious factual inaccuracies”.
“Indian diplomat Raghoo Puri raised the objection to special mandate holders at the UN General Assembly Third Committee, calling for greater impartiality and accountability from special mandate holders,” according to reports published on Thursday.
“The report, produced by United Nations Special Rapporteur Ben Saul, identified D-Company as a terrorist-linked criminal syndicate based in India. Puri said Ibrahim and his D-Company had been wanted in India for terror attacks since 1993, long before the United Nations Security Council named him in 2003 for terror links to Al-Qaeda,” he said.
“It’s unfortunate that such a fact has not been mentioned and such failure of special mandate holders is doing a lot of harm to this organisation,” Puri said.
He also stated that in India, Ibrahim was still a wanted man and that he was living in Pakistan, where Osama Bin Laden was located and killed by US troops in 2011.
India said misdescription could harm the international body’s credibility. The controversy underscores ongoing disagreements over foreign evaluations of terrorism and border issues.
