United Nations: A team from India is at the UN headquarters to make New Delhi's case for declaring The Resistance Front (TRF) an international terrorist organisation and put sanctions on it, according to sources here. The sources said that the team is meeting on Wednesday with the monitoring team of the Security Council panel known as the 1267 Committee that sanctions terrorist groups and those associated with them.

The team, the sources said, is presenting the committee with evidence of TRF carrying out last month's massacre of tourists in Pahalgam and other activities. The group, an affiliate of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), owned responsibility for the 26 killings. The committee is named after Security Council Resolution 1267 that calls for action against the Islamic State or Da'esh, and Al-Qaida, and groups and people associated with them. The Indian team is also scheduled to meet with the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, and Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, the sources said.

 The sources added that team members will also be meeting with delegations of member countries to press India's case against the terrorist organisation. The 1267 Committee's Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team makes recommendations to the panel, and it also consults "in confidence, with Member States' intelligence and security services" about terrorist organisations and threats, according to its mandate. LeT was listed as an international terrorist organisation in 2005 and sanctioned.

 The sanctions list includes 27 names under which LeT operates, including Pasba-e-Kashmir, and variations of Jamaat-ud-Dawa. About a dozen individuals associated with it, including its leader Hafeez Mohammed Saeed, have also been sanctioned along with three organisations linked to it, including Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. The sanctions include freezing of their assets and travel ban.

On Wednesday, the terror outfit LeT suffered a significant blow as three of its members, including 'Operations Commander' Shahid Kuttay, were killed in an encounter in South Kashmir's Shopian district. Kuttay was responsible for leading terrorist recruitment in the Kashmir valley, deceiving numerous youths into joining the terror group, an official said. On May 7, India launched 'Operation Sindoor' in a decisive response to the April 22 Pahalgam attack, targeting and dismantling terror infrastructure at nine locations across Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. 

(IANS)