India Has 'Evidence' To Put Pakistan Back On Money Laundering Grey List: Sources
New Delhi:
India has collected evidence against Pakistan on its terror funding activities and will present it in the next Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting to put Islamabad back into the money laundering grey list, sources said.
According to sources, Pakistan spends about 18 per cent of its budget on defence services - higher than what conflict-ridden countries spend (10 to 14 per cent). Pakistan has also increased its arms imports by 20 per cent between 1980 and 2023 - in the years it received financial help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This proved that the country is misusing its IMF aid, sources said.
Macroeconomic data also showed that Pakistan's debt is continuously increasing.
Sources said that Pakistan 's increase in defence expenditure and debt shows that the money is not coming from tax revenue but from external borrowings.
Pakistan was placed on the FATF's grey list in June 2018. Countries that are considered safe havens for terror funding and money laundering are put on this list.
Pakistan was said to be lacking a comprehensive and coordinated risk-based approach in combating money laundering and terror financing - following which the FATF urged Islamabad to implement a 34-point action plan by the end of 2019. This deadline was then extended due to the coronavirus pandemic. Between 2020 to 2022, Pakistan carried out measures to its anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism laws.
In September 2022, the FATF conducted an onsite visit to Pakistan to confirm the completion of the action plan. Islamabad was removed from the list in October 2022.
India, responding to FATF's move, had said that Pakistan must continue to take credible action against terrorism.
The tensions between India and Pakistan heightened again after the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people died. India launched Operation Sindoor, a military strike on terror infrastructures in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) on the intervening night of May 9 and 10. However, Pakistan escalated the situation by attacking civilian areas in India with drones. In response, India hit selected military targets deep inside Pakistani territory, such as radar installations, command and control centres, and ammunition depots in Rafiqui, Chaklala, Rahim Yar Khan, Sukkur, and Sialkot, among others.
On May 10, India and Pakistan reached an agreement to stop all firing and military action on land, air, and sea, with immediate effect. Pakistan, however, violated the agreement within hours of it coming into effect. Days later, the Indian military confirmed that the two countries will continue the ceasefire with "no expiration date".
India has still imposed other measures, such as the suspension of the Indus Water Treaty till the time Pakistan "credibly and irrevocably abjures its support to cross-border terrorism".
Asaduddin Owaisi calls to put Pak in FATF list
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP Asaduddin Owaisi, who is part of the all-party delegation led by BJP MP Baijayant Panda, on Thursday said that Pakistan should be put back on the FATF grey list to curb the funding of terrorist groups. According to him, terrorist organisations are being trained in Pakistan and are trying to create unrest in India.
"Pakistan must be brought back to the FATF grey list. That is where we will be able to control this terror financing of all these terrorist organisations. When this person (Asim Munir) was made a Field Marshal in Pakistan, a US-designated terrorist called Mohammad Ehsan was sitting right beside the Field Marshal. These terror groups are prospering over there, they are being trained over there, and the whole task is to destabilise India to create more Hindu Muslim riots in India," he said during an interaction in Riyadh.
India's message to IMF
The IMF disbursed $2.1 billion to Pakistan in two tranches under its Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme. The global lender and Pakistan last year signed a deal for $7 billion under the EFF.
In the recent tranche, it released the funding of $1 billion (over Rs 8,000 crore) to Pakistan when it was busy with arbitrary firing on India after the Indian military launched Operation Sindoor. India had asked it to reconsider its bailout to Pakistan as it allows terrorists to use its soil for launching state-sponsored attacks against Indian citizens. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that the aid to Pakistan is a "form of indirect funding to terror".
However, the IMF defended its loan, saying the debt-ridden country "met all the required targets" to receive the latest loan instalment.
"ur Board found that Pakistan had indeed met all of the targets. It had made progress on some of the reforms, and for that reason, the Board went ahead and approved the program. The first review was planned for the first quarter of 2025. And consistent with that timeline, on March 25 of 2025, the IMF staff and the Pakistani authorities reached a staff-level agreement on the first review for the EFF. That agreement, that staff-level agreement, was then presented to our Executive Board, which completed the review on May 9. As a result, Pakistan received the disbursement at that time," IMF's director of the communications department, Julie Kozack, said.
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