India calls for zero-tolerance without 'double standards' to combat terror-crime nexus

India has called for a zero-tolerance approach, without any "double standards", to combat the existential global threat of the terror-crime nexus, under which UN-sanctioned terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed continue to "destabilise regions through their cross-border financing" and propaganda.

"We have heard today how the twin scourges of terror and organised crime feed off the same lifelines. The nature of their relationship may vary, but they are sustained by the same malignant forces that seek to undermine governance, development and social cohesion through the illegitimate use of violence," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said here on Tuesday.

Speaking at a high-level special event of the United Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on 'Cooperation to promote peace, security and stability: preventing the linking of terrorism with organised crime and its financing through drug trafficking', Akbaruddin said, "The terror-crime nexus is an existential global threat, the contours of which are mutating everyday."