Pakistan has issued an official order to freeze the assets and impose travel ban on Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar after the United Nations declared him a “global terrorist”.

In a notification issued Wednesday, the foreign ministry said, “the Federal Government is pleased to order that the Resolution 2368 (2017) be fully implemented” against Masood Azhar.

The government directed officials to take actions “as appropriate for the implementation of sanctions” against the JeM chief, according to the notification.

Masood Azhar is also banned from selling or purchasing arms and ammunition.

In a huge diplomatic win for India, the United Nations on Wednesday designated Masood Azhar as a “global terrorist” after China lifted its hold on a proposal to blacklist the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief, a decade after New Delhi approached the world body for the first time on the issue.

China lifted technical hold after it found no objection to the listing proposal following a careful study of the “revised materials.”

“Recently, relevant countries revised and re-submitted the materials for the listing proposal to the 1267 Committee. After careful study of the revised materials and taking into consideration the opinions of relevant parties concerned, China does not have objection to the listing proposal,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang had said.

The UN committee listed Azhar on May 1, 2019 as being associated with Al-Qaeda for “participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing, or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf of, or in support of”, “supplying, selling or transferring arms and related material to”, “recruiting for”, “otherwise supporting acts or activities of”, and “other acts or activities indicating association with” the JeM.

However, there was no mention of the deadly Pulwama attack in Jammu and Kashmir, which was claimed by the JeM.

Explaining why the Pulwama attack was not mentioned in the UNSC’s listing of Masood Azhar as global terrorist, the Centre on Thursday said that the listing is “not a biodata” of all his terrorist acts.

“Azhar was designated not based on one incident but several acts of terrorism. Our objective was to ensure his listing as global terrorist. We do not negotiate with any country on terrorism and on matters related to country’s security. China has already given an explanation on why Pulwama has been omitted from listing,” MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said while addressing the media.

The UNSC had on Wednesday said Masood Azhar’s continued association with the Jaish-e-Mohammed was the primary reason why he was designated as a global terrorist.

On the listing of Azhar, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal had said Pakistan will immediately enforce the sanctions imposed on Azhar.

In the wake of the Pulwama terror attack, the US, UK and France had moved a fresh proposal in the UN Security Council to designate Pakistan-based terror group JeM’s chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist.

(With PTI inputs)