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Introduction:
Over the past 74-years-old, India has confronted external and internal threats to the Republic with consistent commitment of its armed forces, overcoming the several challenges to the integrity of the nation’s fabric.
Factors responsible for insurgency:
- Sense of Isolation, Deprivation and Exploitation: Distance from New Delhi and meagre representation in the Lok Sabha has further reduced the vox populi being heard in the corridors of powers, leading to more disillusionment in the dialogue process, thereby making call of the gun more attractive.
- Demographic Changes: The influx of refugees from former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) into Assam led to a dramatic change in the demographic landscape of the region.
- Lack of Economic Development: Union Government’s economic policies have also fuelled resentment and insecurity amongst the people. Due to various factors, the development of NE has lagged behind thereby resulting in lack of employment opportunities. Thus, the youth are easily lured by various insurgent groups in order to earn easy money.
- Internal Displacement: Internal displacement is also an ongoing problem. From the 1990s to the start of 2011, over 800,000 people were forced to flee their homes in episodes of inter-ethnic violencein western Assam, along the border between Assam and Meghalaya, and in Tripura.
- External Support: There is ‘increasing evidence’ of China’s revival of its ‘covert offensive’ in the region.Pakistan’s Special Services Group (SSG) also trained the Naga guerrillas in the 1960s through their bases in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
- Multi-Ethnicity: NE is the most ethnically diverse regionin India. It is home to around 40 million people including 213 of the 635 tribal groups. Each of these tribes is having its own distinct culture. Thus, each tribal sect resents being integrated into mainstream India as it means losing their own distinct identity.
- Perceived Excesses by Indian Army: The promulgation of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in most of the NEI has further alienated the local populace.Though imperative for strengthening the hand of IA for CI operations, it is often portrayed as draconian by various Human Rights (HR) organisations and thus has been vilified by various insurgent groups.
- Easy availability of Arms and ammunition from hostile neighbours and the Porosity of the border with Myanmar due to difficult terrain has helped in infiltration of insurgents.
- The chief sources of funding are extortion, arms and drugs smuggling. Proximity to the Golden triangleensures funding for separatist/secessionist organisations via support of illegal drug smuggling.
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism
- Pakistan has been accused by neighbouring countries India, Afghanistan and Iran and other nations, such as the United States the United Kingdom, and France of involvement in terrorist activities in the region and beyond.
- Money is transferred to terror organization via Pakistan army.
- Pakistan’s tribal region along its border with Afghanistan has been described as a safe haven for terrorists by western media and the United States Defense Secretary. According to an analysis published, Pakistan was, “with the possible exception of Iran, perhaps the world’s most active sponsor of terrorist groups… aiding these groups that pose a direct threat to the United States.
- Pakistan’s active participation has caused thousands of deaths in the region; all these years Pakistan has been supportive to several terrorist groups despite several stern warnings from the international community
- The government of Pakistan has been accused of aiding terrorist organisations operating on their soil who have attacked neighbouring India.
- Pakistan denies all allegations, stating that these acts are committed by non-state actors
- Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has admitted that Pakistan supported and trained terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in 1990s to carry out militancy in Kashmir From 1979 Pakistan was in favour of religious militancy
- Many organizations change names and set up other organization to frame that Pakistan is looking into it.
Terror Financing:
- The financing of terrorism involves providing finance or financial support to individual terrorists or non-state actors.
- Some countries maintain a list of terrorist organizations and have money laundering laws, which are also used to combat providing finance for those organizations.
The importance of combating terrorist financing:
- Terrorists need money and other assets, for weapons but also training, travel and accommodation to plan and execute their attacks and develop as an organisation.
- Disrupting and preventing these terrorism-related financial flows and transactions is one of the most effective ways to fight terrorism.
- Not only can it prevent future attacks by disrupting their material support, the footprints of their purchases, withdrawals and other financial transactions can provide valuable information for ongoing investigations.
- Countering terrorism financing is therefore an essential part of the global fight against terror threat.
- As terrorists and terrorist groups continue to raise money with use of various means, countries must make it a priority to understand the risks they face from terrorist financing and develop policy responses to all aspects of it
- Under the 1267 sanctions ruling, banned entities can get no funds, yet Lakhvi received the bail amount, and the authorities have since lost track of him.
How it helps India to deal with cross border terrorism:
- Recent proposal that Pakistan will put back in the list could affect Pakistan’s credit rating. This will adversely impact its ability to raise loans from major international financial institutions to service existing debt. This will become even more difficult as compared with the previous listing, given the adversarial relationship with the US and the latter’s influence in major financial institutions. So Pakistan will not have adequate resources to fund terrorism
- The decisions of the United Nations Financial Action Task Force (FATF)are about using the threat of economic punishment to move Pakistan away from funding terrorists operating against Afghanistan and India
- Being on the grey list would mean that Pakistan’s transactions are closely monitored. This would further cripple the country’s economy as companies across the world would hesitate from doing business with Pakistan. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank too would avoid giving loans to Pakistan.
- India can now work with multilateral funder institutions to work outvhow Pakistan is channeling money to terrorism.
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