Briefing the Senate recently on terrorist financing, the Minister of State for Interior, Baleeghur Rehman, had little to offer by way of inspiring confidence. He pointed the finger in differing directions. Certain foreign intelligence agencies, he said, fund militant groups to destabilise Pakistan. That does not help since the knee-jerk reaction after each terrorist atrocity in this country has been to blame the 'foreign hand', which means mostly Indian intelligence agency RAW or, of late, also Afghanistan's NDS. Answering a question about major sources of terrorist funding, he said, that was difficult to pinpoint with 100 percent accuracy, and then went on to venture a guess rather than providing evidence-based information, adding that some of the generally perceived sources include extortion and funding by foreign intelligence agencies. For reason best known to him the minister did not mention the funding that is known to be flowing to various terrorist groups from the Gulf region even though the issue was supposed to have been raised with certain Gulf states' governments.
While the two main opposition parties, the PPP and PTI, have been repeatedly criticising the government for its failure to implement the 20-point National Action Plan (NAP), of which one of the points calls for "choking financing for terrorists and terrorist organisations" Rehman made the astonishing claim that the plan is being implemented in letter and spirit. In any case, as far as funding is concerned, the claim makes little sense considering that he could not even clearly identify its sources. In fact, the evidence of ineffectiveness is galore. For instance, the minister sought credit for strengthening the anti-terrorist regime with a focus on choking terrorism funding source, reminding his audience that amendments to the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, were introduced in March 2013 and June 2014 to make the law more potent and in harmony with international best practices. Important as it is to strengthen the relevant laws, they are of little use unless implemented efficiently. That has not happened. The law with its new rules for freezing assets of terrorists is still sitting with the law and justice division for final vetting.
Similarly, the designated/proscribed entities and individuals are prohibited from opening bank accounts and availing any facility from financial institutions. For this and other purposes, the interior ministry is supposed to display their names on its website. Yet many of the known terrorist groups and individuals are missing from its list. The usual practice is to proscribe a terrorist organisation after the UN or the US does so. Even when they are banned, their leaders are allowed to reinvent the identities of their organisations under new names and stay active. They may lie low for a while but never give up their evil agendas. Unless and until this government adopts a zero tolerance for such elements and their sponsors, the scourge of terrorism cannot be eliminated from this society.