Cash and Terror
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his decision to withdraw high-value currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 on November 8, 2016, one of his stated objectives was to choke the flow of money to terror groups. “Enemies from across the border run their operations using fake currency notes,” he said in his televised speech. A year later, official statistics don’t seem to support the PM’s convictions. Cross-border terrorism in J&K has, in fact, gone up between November 1, 2016 and October 31, 2017. There were 341 terror incidents during this period compared with 311 a year ago in the same time span, MoS for Home Affairs Hansraj Ahir told the Lok Sabha on December 19.
In December 2016, a month after the November 8 announcement, the prime minister went on to claim that terrorism and Naxalism, both heavily reliant on black money, had been effectively neutralised through the demonetisation drive. But documents recovered from the site of an encounter in Abujmarh in Chhattisgarh on November 7, 2017 indicate that the Maoists may have found ways to beat the demonetisation trap. According to these documents, a Chhattisgarh-based Maoist group had exchanged demonetised notes amounting to Rs 2 lakh. The 20-page handwritten “balance sheets”, which date between 2013 and 2017, listed the finances of only one ‘ janata sarkar’ (local government).
D.M. Awasthi, Special Director General, Anti-Naxal Operations, Chhattisgarh, admitted Maoist groups had exchanged some demonetised currency via villagers and contractors, forcing them to deposit cash in their bank accounts, but maintained nevertheless that demonetisation had had an impact on Maoist activities: Chhattisgarh Police claims to have seized more than Rs 1.05 crore in banned notes across the Naxal-hit state.
In Assam, the ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam), which had been reduced to only sending out press notes in the last couple of years, has upped the ante this year. On December 15, the Paresh Baruah-led faction of ULFA, known as ULFA (I), abducted 24-yearold Arunav Phukan from Changlang district in Arunachal Pradesh. Phukan is the son of Dilip Phukan, a businessman and small-time BJP leader from Jagun in Assam’s Tinsukia district. The insurgent group has reportedly demanded a ransom of Rs 2 crore. On December 11, the same outfit gunned down Anteswar Mahanta, a local village defence party president, and his son Arun in Bordumsa near the Assam-Arunachal border. The father and son were both members of the BJP, and ULFA (I) suspected them of being police informers. Terror outfits seem to be alive and kicking.