The Pakistan government has reportedly written to Afghanistan seeking the arrest of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar, Pakistani media reported on Tuesday, September 13. Azhar is a United Nations (UN)-designated terrorist.
Masood Azhar was freed from jail in India on December 31, 1999, after the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC 814. He was designated a global terrorist after the Pulwama attack in February 2019.
While speculation is rife that Masood Azhar is lodged in Pakistan, the latter has maintained that he is not and is may be in Afghanistan.
According to Pakistani media outlet Bol News, Maulana Masood Azhar is probably present in the Nangarhar and Kunar areas of Afghanistan.
Top sources told CNN-News18 that the Pakistan foreign office in its letter to the Taliban has claimed that Masood Azhar is possibly hiding in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
"He could be in Nangarhar and Kunar areas, so he should be found, arrested, and informed," the letter by Pakistan's foreign office to Taliban said, News18 cited sources as saying.
Indian officials react
This letter could be Pakistan’s attempt to comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) mandate and get off the intergovernmental organisation’s grey list, Indian government officials told CNN-News18.
"If FATF falls for this, then it will be clear that they don’t have any problem with terrorism if it doesn’t affect them," security analyst Sushant Sareen told CNN-News18.
Meanwhile, an officer said, "Instead of searching for him (Azhar) in Nangarhar, they should find him in their safe houses of Bahawalpur and Rawalpindi."
According to sources, this is the second time that a letter has been written to Afghanistan. The first was in January this year, when Pakistan took up the issue with Afghanistan at a ministerial level.
The second letter was sent just ahead of FATF’s on-site visit to Pakistan that happened from August 28 to September 3, sources said.
The task force had then found Pakistan compliant or largely compliant on all the 34 points in February this year and had decided to field an onsite mission to verify it on the ground before formally announcing the country's exit from the grey list.
A move to comply with FATF?
Pakistan has been struggling to exit the FATF's grey list since June 2018. Therefore, the country is hoping to be taken off the grey list at the October plenary of FATF. However, it has to comply with a 34-point task list.
The Asia-Pacific Group (APG) of the FATF is a global watchdog for terror financing and money laundering. The 'grey' listing implies that the FATF has placed a country under increased monitoring to check its progress on measures against money laundering and terrorism financing, the Indian Express reported.
The global body had recently rated Pakistan's level of effectiveness as low on 10 out of 11 international goals on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terror, news agency PTI reported earlier this week. It suggested that Pakistan had a moderate level of effectiveness on only one out of 11 outcomes, Dawn reported.
However, the country is compliant with 38 out of 40 technical recommendations. Last month, the APG described Pakistan as compliant or largely compliant on 38 out of 40 technical recommendations of the FATF on anti-money laundering and combating financing of terror.
It had, however, retained Islamabad on ‘Enhanced Follow-up' until further progress was made on the two remaining recommendations. This meant that Pakistan made major progress on FATF's technical recommendations to qualify to be moved out of the grey list, but it is still far behind FATF's immediate outcomes on effectiveness.
According to Dawn, the need to investigate and prosecute those involved in money laundering is among the areas flagged for improvement. Other areas included improvement in the prosecution of individuals involved in terror financing and the disruption of their networks.
In 2020, Pakistan had imposed tough financial sanctions on 88 banned terror groups and their leaders, including Hafiz Saeed, Masood Azhar and Dawood Ibrahim, by ordering the seizure of all of their properties and freezing of bank accounts.
What grey list exit means for Pakistan?
The exit from the FATF grey list will restore Pakistan's image and give confidence to foreign investors for doing business in the country. The grey listing makes it hard for countries to do financial transactions therefore raising the cost of doing business. Pakistan's removal from the grey list will help give an impetus to its struggling economy, news agency PTI quoted experts as saying.
