FATF report warns 'Left-wing groups seeking to overthrow Indian govt'

NEW DELHI: The left-wing extremist groups seeking to overthrow the Indian government, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) warned on Thursday and added that the most significant terrorism threats appear to relate to ISIL or AQ-linked groups active in and around Jammu and Kashmir.
FATF in its India's mutual evaluation report said that the terrorist financing risks are generally closely linked with terrorism risks, with flows of funds or provision of other assets constrained to within India or surrounding countries.
"India faces a disparate range of terrorism threats, categorised into six different theatres. These can be summarised as theatres associated with ISIL or AQ-linked extremist groups active in and around Jammu and Kashmir, whether directly or via proxies or affiliates, as well as other separatist movements in the region; other ISIL and AQ cells, their affiliates, or radicalised individuals in India; regional insurgencies in the Northeast and North of India; and left-wing extremist groups seeking to overthrow the government. The most significant terrorism threats appear to relate to ISIL or AQ-linked groups active in and around Jammu and Kashmir," FATF said.
Praising India's performance in fighting against the anti-money laundering, the FATF report said that New Delhi has implemented an anti-money laundering (AML)/counter-terrorist financing (CFT) system that is effective in many respects and particularly good results are being achieved in the areas of money laundering/TF risk understanding; national coordination and cooperation; use of financial intelligence for money laundering, predicate offences and TF investigations; depriving criminals of their assets; preventing misuse of legal structures; the implementation of targeted financial sanctions related to proliferation; and international cooperation.
FATF also said that there are scope of major improvements to strengthen the prosecution of ML and TF, protecting the non-profit sector from terrorist abuse, supervision and implementation of preventive measures
India achieved major success in the last two to three years before the FATF on-site visit, according to the report.
"Many positive developments have taken place in the last two to three years before the on-site visit, and while some initiatives are beginning to show results (e.g., increases in ML investigations, improvements to the timelines for incoming MLA requests, the implementation of a new mechanism of TFS for PF), others have been too recent and require an appropriate period of time to be operational and lead to changes in the effectiveness of the system (e.g., DNFBP and VASP supervision)."
" India has achieved strong results in its technical compliance with the FATF Standards. The remaining areas requiring significant improvement are risk-based measured to protect NPOs, establishing due diligence requirements on domestic PEPs and supervision of DNFBPs," it added.
The FATF also said that Indian authorities have demonstrated a good understanding of both current and emerging TF threats and risks in different theatres of risk in the country, and investigations are broadly conducted in line with the risks identified. Case studies provided reflect India’s ability, in particular the National Investigative Agency (NIA) and ED, to conduct complex financial investigation and identify money trails to support the investigation and prosecution of terrorist activity and TF.