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Rajasthan Samgrah Kalyan Sansthan (RSKS India) Chief Executive Officer SN Sharma has called for stronger international action against cross-border networks that finance, train, facilitate or support armed violence, saying accountability must extend beyond national borders.
Addressing the Interactive Dialogue with the Working Group on the use of mercenaries during the 63rd Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC-63), Dr. Sharma highlighted the human cost of violence and the challenges posed by networks that operate through intermediaries and across jurisdictions. Referring to some of the deadliest attacks in India, Dr. Sharma recalled the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people were killed; the 2019 Pulwama attack, which claimed the lives of 40 security personnel; and the April 2025 Pahalgam attack, in which 26 people, mostly tourists, were killed. He said the figures represented individual lives, families and futures disrupted by violence. Sharma also drew attention to the wider international dimension of the problem, saying civilians in cities including Kabul, London and Paris have faced violence linked to armed networks operating across borders. He said such networks become particularly difficult to hold accountable when financing, recruitment, training, weapons, logistics and other forms of support are spread across different countries and concealed through intermediaries. No border should be allowed to shield those who finance violence, no intermediary should be used to conceal responsibility, and no victim should be forced to wait for justice simply because the network behind the crime stretches across countries, Sharma said. He urged the Human Rights Council and Member States to strengthen international cooperation to trace illicit financial flows, disrupt recruitment and training networks, deny safe havens to those facilitating violence, improve intelligence-sharing and prosecute those who provide material or logistical support. Sharma also called for greater attention to victims, stressing that international efforts to counter violence should include access to justice and meaningful support for affected families. When violence crosses borders, accountability must cross borders too, he said. Sharma said the protection of human rights required more than statements of concern when violence was organised through transnational networks, financial channels and intermediaries. He called for faster and more coordinated international cooperation to ensure that those responsible for enabling violence cannot evade accountability by operating across borders. (ANI)
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