India on Wednesday urged the international community to ensure that UN-designated terrorist groups, including Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, along with their facilitators, do not exploit Afghan territory for terrorist activities.Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on Afghanistan, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, said, as quoted by PTI, “The international community must coordinate efforts towards ensuring that entities and individuals designated by the UN Security Council, ISIL and Al Qaeda and their affiliates,” adding, “including Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, along with those who facilitate their operations, no longer exploit the Afghan territory for terrorist activities.”This comes shortly after Jaish-e-Mohammad’s top commander, Masood Ilyas Kashmiri, appeared in a video admitting that a counterterror strike under Operation Sindoor tore the family members of the terror group’s chief, Maulana Masood Azhar, into pieces.In the 15-minute speech posted on pro-Jaish Telegram channels, Kashmiri, heavily guarded by Pakistani army commandos, recounted the operation and its impact on the group. He narrated how, despite the terror outfit’s members having sacrificed everything, India managed to decimate Masood Azhar’s family at Markaz Subhan Allah on May 7.“We embraced terrorism… fought Delhi, Kabul, and Kandahar to protect the borders of Pakistan. But after sacrificing everything, on May 7, Maulana Masood Azhar’s family was torn apart by Indian forces in Bahawalpur,” he said.

Engagement with Afghan leadership

Harish also highlighted India’s close ties with Afghanistan, emphasising the civilisational relationship between the two countries.“We believe in the utmost importance of international and regional consensus and cooperation on key issues concerning Afghanistan and actively engage with all relevant parties to promote peace, stability and development in the country. Our participation in UN meetings in Doha and other regional forums reflects our efforts,” he said.He further noted that External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has held talks with Afghanistan’s Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, and welcomed Afghanistan’s strong condemnation of the April 22 Pahalgam terrorist attack.

India stressed that any post-conflict policy for Afghanistan must combine incentives for positive behaviour with disincentives for harmful actions.“Focusing only on punitive measures is unlikely to meet desired results. The United Nations and the international community has adopted more nuanced approaches in other post-conflict contexts,” said Harish, as quoted by PTI.