‘Pak under pressure from FATF’
NEW DELHI: National Security Advisor Ajit Doval said on Monday that Pakistan is under immense pressure from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to crack down on terrorists operating from its soil.
Speaking at the annual conference of Anti-Terrorism Squads (ATSs) of states, Doval praised the efforts of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in collecting evidence of Pakistan’s role in terror funding in Jammu and Kashmir.
“NIA has been able to make tremendous contribution in its terror funding probe in Jammu and Kashmir. This action put the pressure at the right place in foreign agencies which were running this,” he said.
The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.
Pakistan was placed on the grey list by the Paris-based watchdog in June last year, and was given a plan of action to complete it by October 2019, or face the risk of being placed on the “black list” alongside Iran and North Korea. If Pakistan continues with the “grey list”, it would be very difficult for the country to get financial aid from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Union, making its financial condition precarious.
Addressing the chiefs of ATSs, Doval said that perception management is a key part of fighting terrorism and advocated adoption of a transparent media policy by security agencies.
“Without publicity, terrorism cannot sustain for long and will meet its end.” He recalled former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s remark on media’s role in fighting terrorism. “Media is a very important organ to fight terrorism. As Margaret Thatcher said, if terrorists take action and the media is quiet, the terrorism will end. If media does not write, nobody would come to know,” he said. “It is a very important organ to fight terrorism. Take the media into confidence. Since we don’t tell them many things, probably, they speculate and write. So give them information so that people prepare themselves against terrorism,” he added.