Terror funding: India to move FATF in June to revert Pak to “grey list”
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Nearly two weeks after India took exception to the IMF virtually ‘terror-funding’ Pakistan, even amid the ongoing Operation Sindoor, New Delhi will now make a strong case with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) at its next meeting in June to revert Pakistan to its “grey list” for its failure to comply with anti-money laundering and terror financing rules.
“We will be taking it up (with the FATF),” the media reported a senior official as saying on Friday, when asked whether India will make a case with the global watchdog on terror funding and money-laundering to place Pakistan back in the grey list.
Tensions between India and Pakistan have heightened following the Pakistan-backed terrorists’ massacre of 26 Hindu-only tourists at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir on April 22, and the highly-successful Operation Sindoor that followed.
India strongly believes that Pakistan not only did not act on terror emanating from its territory but has also supported terrorist activities and has been diverting funds from multilateral agencies to buy arms and ammunition.
Time and again, Pakistan has been grey-listed by the FATF but its anti-India mentors like China and Turkey—and to some extent even the West, led by the US—have tacitly ensured that Islamabad did not slip into the black list.
Countries which fail to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing, and are under increased monitoring, are placed in the grey list of FATF.
When FATF places a jurisdiction under increased monitoring, it means the country has committed to resolving swiftly the identified strategic deficiencies within agreed timeframes and is subject to increased monitoring.
The FATF plenary, a decision-making body, meets thrice a year — in February, June and October.
In 2018, Pakistan was placed in the FATF’s grey list and had given an action plan for the country to curb money laundering and terror financing. Following that, in 2022, FATF removed Pakistan from the list.
India had earlier this month opposed the release of the USD 1.3 billion tranche of the IMF’s bailout package to Pakistan.
