The Modi government is tightening its anti-terror fund machinery to clamp down on channels of terror funding in the country.
Ahead of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) risk assessment to be held next year, where India will have to share its anti-terror funding mechanisms against the global standards at a multi-nation platform, several measures have been outlined by the Union home ministry, which is roping in all states to create an exclusive Central database of terror funding for the first time.
The National Crime Records Bureau has been tasked to create such a database and the MHA will act as the custodian for the national database on terror funding. All state law-enforcement agencies will be asked to provide data to it and such data will then be made accessible to all Central and state agencies.
The MHA will also call a meeting of states, particularly where terror-funding cases are in large numbers, like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and others, to discuss the modalities of the Central database.
The fresh move by the MHA has also come at a time when it has impressed upon the FATF that terror funding, be it from ISIS or outfits like Lashkar-e-Tayyaba based in Pakistan, should equally be a matter of concern for all countries.
India had recently reported to the Financial Action Task Force that it has frozen assets worth euro 3 lakh (over Rs 2.12 core) of over three dozen entities on charges of terrorist financing and money laundering of illicit funds. India, however, did not mention that the action involved ISIS operatives.
India is a full-member of FATF, along with other nations like the US, UK, France and Germany.
The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 and is mandated to set global protocols and standards to combat money-laundering and other financial crimes with direct ramifications to terrorist acts across the globe.
