Pakistan

Special cell set up to choke terror financing

The provinces are also being consulted in setting up the mechanism of the cell

Zahid Gishkori September 14, 2015

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar chairs a meeting at the Ministry of Interior in Islamabad on September 14, 2015. PHOTO: PID

ISLAMABAD: After army chief General Raheel Sharif asked the government for effective measures to throttle the flow of funds to terrorist groups, the government on Monday decided to constitute a special cell to track sponsors of terrorism and proscribed groups.

“We considered establishing a National Terrorists Financing Investigation Cell (NTFIC) to curb terror funding in the country,” a senior official told The Express Tribune on Monday.

At a meeting on terror financing in Islamabad on Monday, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan tasked the FIA, State Bank, FBR and intelligence agencies to jointly operate the NTFIC through which the government will track flow of funds between national and international banking systems.

While the cell will be working at the national and international levels, provincial authorities will assist the cell in pointing out accounts of suspicious individuals and organisations. The provinces are also being consulted in setting up the mechanism of the cell.

The move comes after the SBP and FIA told the interior minister that the existing Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) was insufficient. “With the existing system [FMU], we cannot stop terror funding,” said Nisar. Stopping terror financing is imperative to attaining the desired results under the National Action Plan, he added. “This is difficult but not impossible.”

SBP officials presented details of suspicious bank accounts belonging to banned groups and individuals which had been frozen. A participant told The Express Tribune that the central bank has so far frozen an estimated Rs1.2 billion, including Rs6 million in suspicious funds owned by madrassas.

At a separate meeting with the FIA over human trafficking, provincial heads of the agency briefed the minister on rising cases of trafficking in the country.

Nisar, while giving the FIA a month to chalk out a comprehensive strategy to counter human trafficking, directed swift action against all those involved in sending Pakistanis abroad illegally on forged documents.

In 2014-15, the FIA said, it had arrested 46 most-wanted criminals and 1,236 proclaimed offenders involved in human smuggling. Moreover, 1,679 people have been arrested while allegedly trafficking people.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 15^th, 2015.