He was addressing a meeting of the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee
New Delhi: India warned in a bold clear voice on Saturday, Octobeer 29, that social media platforms had turned into potent “toolkits” in the hands of terror groups, a PTI report in The Tribune, Chandigarh, says.
Addressing a special meeting of the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said terrorist groups, their “ideological fellow-travellers” and “lone-wolf” attackers had significantly enhanced capabilities by gaining access to the new technologi.
He said the counter-terror sanction regime of the United Nations had been effective to put countries on notice that turned terrorism into a “state-funded enterprise”, seen as an apparent reference to Pakistan.
Representatives from all 15 member-nations of the UN Security Council are attending the second day’s meeting that is taking place in Delhi. The first day’s events were held in Mumbai.
Reaffirming India’s commitment, the external affairs minister also announced that New Delhi would make a voluntary contribution of half a million dollars in the UN Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism this year.
Jaishankar said while the technological innovations of the past two decades have been transformative in the way the world functions, there is a flip side to it, especially where terrorism is concerned.
“These very technologies have also thrown up new challenges for the governments and regulatory bodies due to their potential vulnerability for misuse by non-state actors, given the very nature of some of these technologies and the nascent regulatory environment,” Jaishankar said.
The external affairs minister said these elements use technology and money, and most importantly, the ethos of open societies, to attack freedom, tolerance and progress.
“Internet and social media platforms have turned into potent instruments in the toolkit of terrorist and militant groups for spreading propaganda, radicalisation and conspiracy theories aimed at destabilising societies,” he said.
“Another add-on to the existing worries for governments around the world is the use of unmanned aerial systems by terrorist groups and organised criminal networks,” he said.
Jaishankar said while the technological innovations of the past two decades have been transformative in the way the world functions, there is a flip side to it, especially where terrorism is concerned.
It is for the first time that the UN Security Council is holding a meeting, in any format, in India.
Describing terrorism as “one of the gravest threats” to humanity, Jaishankar said the UN Security Council, in the past two decades, has evolved an important architecture, built primarily around the counter-terrorism sanctions regime, to combat the menace.
“This has been very effective in putting those countries on notice that had turned terrorism into a state-funded enterprise,” he said.
“Despite this, the threat of terrorism is only growing and expanding, particularly in Asia and Africa, as successive reports of the 1267 Sanctions Committee Monitoring Reports have highlighted,” he said.
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