The Pakistan government has launched a crackdown against over 8,400 individuals allegedly involved in terror financing in a first apparent sign of state acting decisively to track the money supply to extremists.
From the controversial cleric at Islamabad’s Lal Masjid to the mover and shaker of Lyari Aman Committee are among the top suspects whose bank accounts have been frozen under the National Action Plan (NAP).
“Over 8,400 terror suspects are on financial monitoring unit’s radar. We’ve frozen estimated Rs1.2bn in suspicious funds so far,” said a senior official of the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) yesterday.
“Over three dozen banks on our request have also blocked around Rs101mn in suspicious funds owned by 177 madaris,” said the official.
“All bank accounts of Lal Mosque’s top cleric Maulana Aziz and gangster Shahid Bikiki of Lyari Aman Committee have been frozen. Their travel documents have also been cancelled,” said a senior official of the ministry of interior, who is involved in the process.
Authorities at the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) and Directorate of Passport and Immigration office have blocked travel documents of over 3,111 terror suspects whose names were listed in Schedule IV recently, he said.
The government is in the process freezing bank accounts and blocking travel documents of over 8,400 terror suspects whose names have been included to 4th Schedule under the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, interior ministry officials said.
Around 2,021 accounts of prominent individuals have been blocked by various banks on the order of the State Bank of Pakistan, revealed the officials.
The Nacta is also in regular contact with the counter-terrorism forces in Sindh and Balochistan where almost 75% militants on terror watch list are untraceable.
The top body co-ordinating with provinces to clamp down on terrorists wants to get their accounts frozen as soon as possible.
Six most wanted militants belonging to proscribed organizations have shifted to Holland, Bangladesh, Dubai, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan, revealed official documents.
Officials claimed that they would successfully trace accounts of around 38 militants put on watch list and also listed to Schedule IV and now are in various jails of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Punjab.
Security experts, however, said that the government’s late directions to freeze accounts of suspected terrorists might not be helpful to stop terror financing. “It should have been done earlier. It was a key point of NAP. Why did it happen too late,” opined an Islamabad based security expert Imtiaz Gul. Terrorists never transfer money through banks, so government would come hard on militants by blocking their finances which they receive through “hawala and hundi,” Gul said.