India Slams UN Over Dawood: ‘Hiding Where Bin Laden Was Killed’
In a sharp diplomatic takedown at the United Nations, India strongly rejected and condemned a report by a UN Special Rapporteur that erroneously characterized underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s terror syndicate, D-Company, as an "India-based criminal group." Delivering a fiery rebuttal in the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, Raghu Puri, First Secretary at India’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, called out the glaring factual distortion compiled in the report by Ben Saul, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. Puri cautioned that unaccountable and inaccurate reporting by UN mandate holders inflicts severe damage on the legitimacy and global standing of the world body, making it clear that Dawood Ibrahim is India's most-wanted fugitive facing terrorism charges for the 1993 Mumbai serial bombings and has operated exclusively from foreign sanctuaries for decades.
UNSC 1267 Sanctions and the Factual Blunder: Puri Exposes Rapporteur’s Glaring Omission
Dismantling the premise of the Special Rapporteur's findings, Puri highlighted how the report claimed that the Security Council in 2003 listed the leader of an "India-based criminal group, D-Company" for having active links to al-Qaeda. The Indian envoy pointed out that this isolated sentence paints a misleading picture that completely contradicts official United Nations documentation. He noted that Dawood Ibrahim fled Indian borders long before the 2003 designation and was added to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 1267 Al-Qaeda Sanctions list specifically for his active operational ties to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden while orchestrating networks from outside India. Puri emphasized that the official statement of reasons under the 1267 sanctions regime unequivocally establishes that Ibrahim is wanted in India for orchestrating mass terror attacks, declaring that omitting such crucial facts reflects an unacceptable level of institutional incompetence that compromises global counter-terrorism architecture.
The Abbottabad Parallel: India Targets Pakistan Over Underworld Kingpin's Safe Haven
Setting the historical and diplomatic record straight, Puri delivered a pointed reference to Pakistan, reminding the international community that the fugitive underworld kingpin continues to evade justice while hiding in the exact same country where al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was sheltered, tracked down, and eliminated by US Navy SEALs in Abbottabad in 2011. India emphasized that rather than obscuring cross-border criminal safe havens through flawed multilateral paperwork, international bodies must hold state sponsors of terrorism accountable for shielding globally designated offenders. The confrontation marks a firm reiteration of New Delhi's zero-tolerance doctrine on global terror syndicates, sending an unambiguous message to international institutions that India will not permit designated terrorists sheltered on foreign soil to be falsely linked to its sovereign territory.
