World against terror
Amonth after Pakistan was removed from the ‘Grey List’ of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global money-laundering and terror financing watchdog, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for a ‘cost’ to be imposed on countries that support terrorism. Speaking at an international ministerial conference — ‘No Money for Terror’ — on terrorism financing in Delhi, Modi said: ‘Certain countries support terrorism as part of their foreign policy. They offer political, ideological and financial support to them.’ He added that a cost must also be imposed on ‘organisations and individuals which try to create sympathy for terrorists’.
Modi was referring, obviously, to Pakistan and its unabated fostering of terrorists to be used against India. Terrorists belonging to Pakistan-based outfits Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, among others, remain active in J&K. Though the National Investigating Agency director has said there has been a ‘huge reduction’ in terror activities in all ‘theatres of conflicts’ in India, including J&K, he has warned that social media platforms are being used ‘for raising finances which are being used in terror activities’. It is clear that Pakistan has not dismantled its terror infrastructure, though it may have been put in the slow mode to exit the FATF grey list.
Modi also made a reference to China when he said ‘sometimes, there are indirect arguments made in support of terrorism to block actions against terrorists’. Since June, China has blocked attempts by India and the US to put Pakistan-based terrorists on the UN Security Council’s list of terror entities. The breeding of terrorists by the ‘establishment’ — the army — in Pakistan has led to devastation in their own country as well. Pakistan’s establishment does not mind if the cost of its bloody misadventures is paid in blood by its own citizenry. Cross-border terror has been a part of Pakistan’s foreign policy for so long that it has become institutionalised. As Modi said, a global effort must be made to combat and demolish institutionalised terror.
