Tamil Nadu - Chennai

“Keep tab on bank deposits to check terror”

CHENNAI: The origin of a huge sum deposited in a bank has to be traced to identify terrorist financing and prevent attacks in a civil society, according to an expert.

Arabinda Acharya of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in S. Rajaratnam school of International Studies, Singapore, said on Tuesday that money was an important criterion for terrorist organisations: they needed money not only to plant explosives but also to educate people, provide them training in handling explosives and transport them from one place to another.

He was speaking at a discussion on ‘Terrorist Financing in South and Southeast Asia’ organised by the Centre for Security Analysis here.

In these days, an explosion could be triggered with a kg of nitro gel, two kg of ball bearings and a table clock. And this required just Rs. 2,000, he said. Many terrorists groups experimented with low-cost materials, he said.

The groups received donations from members, sympathisers, non-profit organisations, and from import-export business. In some cases, they were also involved in selling pirated CDs/DVDs, diverting the sale proceeds to terrorist activities.

“The infrastructure of terrorist groups are destroyed, but we have failed to solve the issue on the strategic level,” Mr. Acharya said.

Small cells of terrorists were organising small-scale attacks, and the law enforcement agencies had neutralised the activities of the small cells.

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