New Delhi, Sep 2 The United States has recently declared The Resistance Front as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity. This was a huge blow for Pakistan as the move exposed Pakistan’s terror playbook.
The Resistance Front is nothing but a proxy of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. It was, in fact, formed and projected as a local outfit from Jammu and Kashmir. The outfit was meant to give both Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Taiba a deniability factor. The intention was to project the fight in Kashmir as a localised one. Moreover, Pakistan wanted terror attacks to continue and also ensure that it did not come under the scrutiny of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Going by the latest details that the National Investigation Agency has dug out during its probe into the activities of The Resistance Front, it seems that Pakistan cannot use this proxy to escape from the FATF. The Resistance Front has a deep-rooted network in Jammu and Kashmir. It has locals who, at the behest of Pakistan, are in touch with people in the Gulf and Malaysia to ensure that the funds are provided to run the activities of this terror outfit.
During the probe, the name of one Sajad Ahmed Mir, a resident of Malaysia, cropped up. Phone calls of a suspect, Yasir Hayat, revealed that he was in touch with Mir to arrange for the funds. Hayat has made several visits to Malaysia to arrange for funds.
Details that have cropped up so far reveal that with the help of his Malaysian contact, he had raised Rs 9 lakh for The Resistance Front. The money was given to another operative by the name Shafat Wani to run the activities of the outfit.
Wani, who is a key operative of the TRF, is also said to have visited Malaysia. He stated that he was attending a conference at a university, and it was on this pretext that he visited the country. The university had, however, not sponsored this visit.
The NIA also learnt that Hayat, apart from staying in touch with Mir, was also in contact with two Pakistanis. His activities were all about raising funds, and the probe suggests that his job was to be in touch with foreign operatives and raise money for the terror outfit.
While the NIA has plenty of details regarding the operations of the TRF, finding the complete money trail is key to the probe. On August 13, the NIA had said that it had uncovered a foreign trail of funds that was being probed extensively.
There are 463 contacts on Hayat’s phone that the NIA is probing extensively. Calls have been made to Pakistan and Malaysia on several occasions. All these numbers are being probed, and investigators say that this is crucial to uncover the funding network of The Resistance Front.
These details are important to uncover the trail, and they would help India expose Pakistan before the FATF.
India has been building up a case against Pakistan on terror funding to ensure that it gets back onto the Grey List. The Resistance Front was created in 2019 to replace the declining Hizbul Mujahideen and also give a fresh identity to local terror activities.
It was also created to offer the Lashkar-e-Taiba a deniability cover and to make attacks appear as indigenous resistance, rather than Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. What appeared to be a new homegrown movement was actually a rebranded arm of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, which was designed to misguide the global community and deflect pressure from institutions such as the FATF.
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