Pakistan calls on UNSC to designate RSS as ‘terrorist’

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - Pakistan has urged the UN Security Council to designate "violent nationalist groups" including India's hardline Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as proscribed outfits like other militant groups.

Pakistan's Ambassador to the UN, Munir Akram, laid out an "action plan" before the 15-member Security Council to tackle nationalist groups including the RSS, which is believed to be the parent group of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported Wednesday.

According to Akram, these groups, including the RSS "pose a clear danger to regional and international peace and security."

“Such violent racist and extremist terrorism will inevitably breed counter-violence and validate the dystopian narrative of terrorist organizations such as ISIS/Daesh and Al-Qaeda," Akram was quoted as saying.

Calling for "immediate" steps to curb the rise of violent nationalism, he proposed to the UN and its member states to initiate domestic actions to prevent the propagation of the violent ideologies, recruitment to and financing of these groups.

He urged the UN Secretary-General to present a "plan of action" to confront and defeat the extremist ideologies and actions of these groups.

Citing the scrapping of the longstanding semi-autonomous status of disputed Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019 and the introduction of controversial citizenship laws by the Indian government, the Pakistani envoy said the world needs to "expand and adjust its counter-terror strategy to "defeat terrorism in all forms and manifestations.”