Pakistan and Afghanistan have opted out of the two-day ‘No Money For Terror’ Ministerial Conference starting in the national capital from Friday. China is still to confirm its presence at the event , the government said.
Over 78 nations and multilateral organisations, including ministers from 20 countries, will be attending the third edition of the conference being inaugurated by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The concluding remarks will be delivered by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday evening.
On the eve of the conference, Dinkar Gupta, Director General of National Investigation Agency (NIA), stated “Pakistan and Afghanistan are not participating in this conference.” On a query if China will attend the global meet, Secretary West (MEA) Sanjay Verma, who was sharing the dais at the curtain raiser briefing, clarified that “China has been invited” but its “participation .is not yet confirmed”.
Gupta, however, made it clear that the conference agenda does not include country-specific discussions. The participants will discuss issues ranging from sources of terror to the threat or its funding. “Every participating country has full right to express its views,” he said.
Agenda
India is expected to draw global attention towards issues such as lack of universal consensus on laws regarding cybercrimes; weak control of social media platforms and their misuse by terrorist and extremist groups, dark web and crypto-currency. Besides that, crowdfunding; anonymous, decentralised and untraceable nature of terror financing; effective multilateral and multi-stakeholder approach in identification and mitigation of threats of emerging terror-financing mechanisms; misuse of non-profit and non-government organisations as front structures for financing terror activities are among other serious agendas to be deliberated upon at the event.
Crowdfunding terror
To a question on the inclusion of social media platform regulation in the agenda for discussion, NIA DG said they have evidence that such platforms are being used to raise financing, funding or as crowdfunding platforms. “We do have evidence of this kind of thing happening. This is an issue that needs to be discussed because such platforms are being used for raising finances which are being used in terror activities,” Gupta asserted.
From traditional funding modes such as hawala to wire transfers or cash couriers, or the new ways of crowd funding that are developing, these are criticial issues that warrant close global scruitny, the director general said. The conference, said Gupta, would have four sessions — ‘Global Trends in Terrorism and Terrorist Financing’, ‘Use of Formal and Informal Channels of Funds for Terrorism’, ‘Emerging Technologies and Terrorist Financing’, and ‘International Co-operation to Address Challenges in Combating Terrorist Financing.