India is planning to ask Pakistan to seize assets of fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and most wanted terrorists Hafiz Saeed and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, as all the three are in the UNSC’s al-Qaeda sanctions list that makes it incumbent upon Islamabad to freeze their holdings.
The U.N. Security Council’s al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee has listed Dawood, Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Saeed and Mumbai terror attack key conspirator Lakhvi and imposed sanctions on them.
“As a U.N. member state, it is the responsibility of Pakistan to freeze their assets. We are planning to send a formal communication to Pakistan to let us know whether assets of the three terrorists were seized and if not will ask it to freeze them immediately,” a government official said.
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The committee, established pursuant to U.N. Security Council resolution 1267 (1999), is a UNSC subsidiary organ that oversees the implementation by member states of the three sanctions measures — assets freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo — imposed against targeted individuals and entities associated with al Qaeda, as designated by the Committee in its sanctions list.
India has been maintaining that 1993 Mumbai serial blasts key accused Dawood is in Pakistan, though Islamabad denies it.
Saeed roams freely in Pakistan while Lakhvi, set free from a Rawalpindi jail in April 2015, is currently living in the country.
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Dawood was put in the UNSC sanctions list in 2003 and Saeed and Lakhvi in 2008.
India’s communication is expected to be sent through diplomatic channel.