Terrorists are glorified with postage stamps due to lack of progress at UN: India to global leaders

India on Saturday lambasted the lack of progress at the UN for adopting a global convention on international terrorism, saying it is because of such inactions that terrorists with a bounty on their head are celebrated and glorified with postage stamps.

India last week called off a meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi at the UN citing the release of postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani by Pakistan as one of the reasons.

"Each year, for last five years, India has been arguing from this podium that lists are not enough to check terrorists and their protectors. We need to bring them to accountability through international law," Swaraj said in her address to the General Debate of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly here.

She said that India had proposed a draft document in 1996 on the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) at the UN but even till today, that draft has remained a draft, because UN member states cannot agree on a common language.

"On the one hand, we want to fight terrorism; on the other, we cannot define it.

"This is why terrorists with a price on their head are celebrated, financed and armed as liberation heroes by a country that remains a member of the United Nations," Swaraj said