TRF's Dark Funding Trail

The agency had found vital documents and important leads related to TRF's foreign funding, with crucial information on the accounts and sources traced to the money

- SHANTANU MUKHARJI

Recently, in a sensational disclosure, the Indian premier investigating organization, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), gave out that The Resistance Front (TRF), the proxy group of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which had claimed responsibility for the killing of 26 innocents at the Pahalgam attack on April 22 this year, had received funding from various international channels other than Pakistan.

In this connection, the NIA has unearthed as many as 463 phone calls linked to anti-India elements and abettors of terrorism, comprehensively exposing the TRF's funding avenues. They found definite clues pointing to Pakistan, Malaysia, and Gulf countries, from where the TRF's funds have trickled in and helped the terrorists to proliferate terrorism in different parts of the region.

Further, according to NIA sources, the TRF received about Rs 9 lakh worth of money through Malaysian resident Yasir Hayat, which the NIA has delved into while confirming links with the network of Sajid Mir, the most wanted terrorist of the LeT.

Further, the NIA has also retrieved critical information from mobile data, social media chats, bank transactions, and call records of these people.

This extraordinary breakthrough follows NIA raids in Srinagar and Handwara in Jammu and Kashmir. The agency had found vital documents and important leads related to TRF's foreign funding, with crucial information on the accounts and sources traced to the money.

These details will help India present a foolproof case before the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to ensure that Islamabad faces economic consequences for supporting devastating terror activities.

India has been consistently pursuing Pakistan's inclusion into the FATF radar for nations considered safe havens for terror financing and money laundering.