TRF claimed Pahalgam attack twice, but Pakistan blocked its naming at UN: MEA

India has accused Pakistan of attempting to shield The Resistance Front (TRF), a Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy, during United Nations Security Council (UNSC) deliberations on the recent terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir.

Addressing a press briefing on Thursday, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said that while the UNSC was preparing a formal statement condemning the April 22 massacre — which killed 26 civilians — Pakistan insisted that TRF’s name be excluded from the document, despite the group having publicly claimed responsibility for the attack not once, but twice.

He underscored that this behavior is part of Pakistan’s continuing pattern of providing diplomatic cover to terror outfits operating under the guise of new names.

The Resistance Front, long seen as a front for LeT to deflect global scrutiny, has emerged as a key player in a series of attacks in Kashmir, offering Pakistan plausible deniability while continuing its sponsorship of cross-border terrorism.

Misri also confirmed that India will soon approach the UNSC 1267 Sanctions Committee, which is tasked with overseeing sanctions against designated terrorists and their networks.

Misri took direct aim at Pakistan’s long-standing denial of harbouring terrorists. “Pakistan is trying to tell the world there are no terrorists on its soil. I don’t have to remind you where Osama bin Laden was found—and who called him a martyr.”

Sheikh Sajjad Gul, a 50-year-old Kashmiri and head of Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy The Resistance Front (TRF), has emerged as the mastermind of the Pahalgam terror attack.

Holed up in the Cantonment town of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, under the patronage of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Gul, who also goes by the alias of Sajjad Ahmed Sheikh, has been a planner of a number of terror attacks, including targeted killings between 2020 and 2024 in Central and South Kashmir, grenade attacks in Central Kashmir in 2023, ambush of J&K police personnel in Bijbehra in Anantnag, Gagangir, Z-Morh Tunnel attack in Ganderbal.

The NIA had designated him a terrorist in April 2022 and kept a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head.

India has repeatedly urged the international community to take stronger steps against terror proxies operating under new aliases. The naming of TRF, in particular, has become a diplomatic flashpoint, with India pushing for its designation under the 1267 list, which would freeze the group’s assets, impose travel bans, and arms embargoes on its members.