Warning that terrorist groups are enormously boosting their capabilities, India has renewed its call for urgently adopting the international treaty against terrorism it proposed almost 30 years ago and suggested a way out of the problem of defining terrorism and terrorists, which is holding it up.

“It is unfortunate that while terrorism remains unabated, destroying humanity and societies around the world, our efforts towards a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) are constrained by narrow differences,” R. Mythili, the legal officer at India’s UN Mission, told the General Assembly committee that deals with legal matters on Thursday.

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The main roadblock to adopting the CCIT is the definition of terrorism and terrorists.

“India reiterates the need for early finalisation of draft CCIT on the definition of international terrorism,” she said. Some countries like Pakistan defend terrorists as “freedom fighters”, thereby legitimising terrorism.

“It is unfortunate that some amongst us, motivated by their narrow political agendas, look for reasons to justify terrorism (and) because of these states, the global resolve to fight against terrorism gets diminished,” Mythili said.

She suggested that the stalemate over defining terrorists and terrorism can be overcome by adopting the definition in a 2004 Security Council resolution against terrorism. The resolution defines terrorism as “criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror” or to force a government or international organisation to take a certain action or to stop it from taking it.

Saying that this could be the basis for discussions for defining terrorism and terrorists in the treaty, Mythili said: “We urge member states to take an objective approach and end the stalemate preventing the adoption” of the CCIT.

She reminded the members of the UN that the ambitious Pact of the Future adopted last month by world leaders at the Summit of the Future “has given us again, underscored, the determination” to pursue “a future free from terrorism”.

“Terrorist groups have enormously increased their capabilities by acquiring new and cutting-edge technologies, including drones and unmanned aircraft systems with cameras,” she said.

“This growing menace can only be tackled through effective international collaboration, which remains elusive to a large measure because of political divides,” she said.

Mythili said that in terrorist attacks going back over three decades, India has lost thousands of innocent civilian lives. She listed the major ones: The 2008 Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks, the 2016 Pathankot airbase attack, and the 2019 suicide bombing of a police convoy at Pulwama. These “are imprinted strongly in every Indian’s living memory”, she said.

Without naming Pakistan, she noted that “even 15 years after the Mumbai terror attacks, the masterminds continue to roam scot-free with full state hospitality”.