Terrorism | UPSC Mains: Internal Security & Disaster Management PDF Download

The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act defines a “terrorist act” as any act intended to threaten or likely to threaten India's unity, integrity, security, economic security, or sovereignty or to strike dread in the people or any segment of the people in India or abroad.

Funding Source of Terrorism 

• Extortion and taxation: Local extortion and taxation fund most north-eastern insurgencies. Drug, weapon, and counterfeit currency trafficking supplement this. Maoist, North-East, and J&K insurgents use this source.
• Smuggling: These groups then use the funds collected to smuggle weapons, explosives, and technology-based equipment, like satellite radios, from open, porous borders.
• Looting: In Iraq and Syria, ISIS has generated revenue through extortion of local businesses, kidnapping for ransom, and looting.
• State-sponsored terrorism: J&K exemplifies state-sponsored terrorism finance. Drug money, gifts, and Gulf funds are used by the ISI.
• Drug trafficking: It poses a highly entrenched threat to India. Much of the trafficking of narcotics and other illegal drugs in Asia traverses South Asia.
• Hawala: In South Asia, hawala, or international money laundering networks, pose risks. Hawala networks emerged due to rural banking inadequacies.
• Counterfeiting of Indian currency: Pakistan funded terrorism and utilised it to hurt India's economy. Pakistan and India produce Fake Indian Currency Notes Information System (FICN).

Money Laundering And Funding For Terrorism 

• Aim: The laundering of criminal funds aims at giving a legal appearance to dirty money, whereas the laundering of terrorist funds aims at obscuring assets of a legal origin (such as public funding or so-called charities). Profitable crime is the focus of criminal organizations.
• It is thus necessary, for criminal organizations to:
  1. Erase the link between the crime and the money.
  2. Erase the link between the money and its new owner, and finally
  3. Shelter the profits from possible confiscation.
• The above activities constitute the very nature of money laundering, which generally develops in three phases:
  1. Deposit of illicit funds in banks. 
  2. To deceive investigators, monies entering the financial system are put through a series of financial activities. Money laundering uses offshore techniques. Financial havens and money launderers mislead investigators with fake invoices, loans, and other methods.
  3. Finally, money laundering entails legalising the funds. Consuming luxury goods to "burn" ill-gotten cash; investing in common assets like stocks, real estate, etc.; and investing in sustainable economic entities.

Steps Taken to check Terror Funding 

• Strengthening UAPA: The provisions in the UAPA, 1967 to combat terror financing by criminalizing the production or smuggling or circulation of high-quality counterfeit Indian currency as a terrorist act.
• Terror Funding and Fake Currency (TFFC) Cell: New cell has been constituted in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to conduct a focused investigation of terror funding and fake currency cases.
• Renewed focus on currency Counterfeit: An advisory on terror financing has been issued in April 2018 to States/ UTs. Guidelines have also been issued in March 2019 to States/ UTs for investigation of cases of high-quality counterfeit Indian currency notes.
• Coordination Group: FICN Coordination Group (FCORD) has been formed by the Ministry of Home Affairs to share intelligence/information among the security agencies of the states/centre to counter the problem of circulation of fake currency notes.
• Security at the international Borders: new monitoring equipment, 24/7 staff, observation posts along the international border, border barrier, and intensive patrolling have strengthened it.

HYBRID TERRORIST

• Hybrid terrorists are individuals who are not classified as ultras but are radicalized enough to carry out a terror attack and then return to normal life, according to security services and intelligence agencies in Kashmir. In other words, they are the sleeper cells.
• Security agencies describe these terrorists as “boys next door” who are kept on standby mode by terror groups.

Main Challenge Posed by Hybrid Terrorists:

• Identification: Finding the hybrid terrorists' presence or whereabouts is extremely challenging. Additionally, it is challenging to stop, capture, or neutralize them through encounters.
• Threat on Multiple Levels: By combining conventional terrorist techniques with contemporary technical skills, hybrid terrorists in India constitute a threat on multiple levels.
• Digital radicalization: To radicalise people and promote extremist ideology, hybrid terrorists take advantage of social media and online platforms.
• Cyberattacks: To stop the country from running smoothly, hybrid terrorists launch cyberattacks against vital infrastructure, administrative systems, and financial networks.
• Cross-Border Infiltration: Hybrid terrorists sneak into India through porous borders and security lapses, frequently by taking advantage of local sympathisers and support networks.
• Networks of funding: To fund their operations, hybrid terrorist organisations set up intricate networks of funding that include illegal trades in drugs, counterfeit money, and money laundering.
• Sleeper Cells: In India, hybrid terrorists maintain sleeper cells made up of people who blend in with society as they wait for orders to launch strikes.
• Technology weaponization: Hybrid terrorists use technological advances to create and use high-tech weaponry, such as drones, remote-controlled gadgets, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
• Coordinated assaults: Hybrid terrorists plot and carry out simultaneous coordinated assaults in several places, hoping to maximise casualties and promote panic and anarchy.

Overground Workers 

• Overground workers (OGWs) are people who help militants, or terrorists, with logistical support, cash, shelter, and other infrastructure with which armed groups and insurgency movements such as Hizbul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Muhammad in Jammu and Kashmir can operate. OGWs play a crucial role in militant attacks, providing real-time information and support to the tactical elements.

Role of Overground Workers:

• Instrument For Communication: In places impacted by insurgency, OGWs have developed into a crucial instrument for strategic communication and recruiting by their operators.
• Recruitment: Potential recruiters can flourish among those detained under the Public Safety Act (PSA) in J&K and other insurgency-affected regions since they share prisons with committed terrorists.
• Attackers: The process usually starts with kids being employed to attack security people with stone-throwing for money, escalates to more serious vandalism, and concludes with being an OGW who provides logistical support for strike squads.
• Training: Before joining the mainstream groups for more serious actions, the more resilient and driven youth are first given jobs of a more serious nature, such as grenade throwing and weapon snatching.
• Brainwashing: It is widely recognised that OGWs can continuously strive to instil unfavourable feelings in the minds of the so-called "grey population" or "decision-makers" in an insurgency.
• Helps Infiltrators: The terrorist attack by Pakistani nationals at Sunjuwan leaves no doubt that OGWs helped the group infiltrate months earlier.
• Infrastructure Provider: OGWs support insurgent infrastructure and operations. They help with supplies, weapons, shelter, and movement.
• Sleeper Cells: Thus, moving without a weapon has become the norm. As a result, a modern terrorists might be difficult to spot since they operate in an intersection between OGWs and terrorists.
• Protestors: To demoralize and delegitimize the security forces, they are encouraging people to protest over unimportant issues.

Measures to counteract Overground Worker's influence:

• Effective funding control through greater monitoring.
• Adding more intelligence and police officers.
• The time spent behind bars needs to be watched to stop inmates from talking to hardcore fundamentalists and terrorists.
• Can enlist the assistance of Community leadership to combat OGW's militant propaganda.
• Ensuring inclusive growth to combat alienation sentiments.

Steps to Counter Terrorism 

• Intelligence gathering and analysis: Intelligence is essential in countering terrorism, in diminishing terrorism’s tactical effects and strategic importance.
• Law enforcement and investigations: To prosecute terrorists, law enforcement must conduct criminal investigations that allow the prosecution to present the case. Investigators and prosecutors must collaborate and be experienced investigators to do this.
• Border and transportation security: Effective border security and management are essential to preventing and combating the movement of suspected terrorists and Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) across land, air, and maritime borders, as well as the cross-border movement of licit and illicit cargo like drugs, weapons, arms, and munitions that may be used for terrorism.
• Cybersecurity and information sharing: In cyber security, everything that is done in countering terrorism has to be based on intelligence, often gathered from local sources who have intimate knowledge of the area and populations in which terrorist operatives hide.
• Counter-radicalization and community engagement: In recent years, domestic terrorism and radicalization have compelled governments to reassess their counterterrorism methods and focus on "soft" approaches that tackle violent extremism's intellectual and ideological foundation.
• Military action and operations: A military is authorised to use lethal force and weapons to defend its nation state and its population. Terrorism and state reactions affect politics differently.
• Financial and economic measures: UN Security Council resolution 2462 (2019) urges States to prevent and suppress terrorism financing by criminalising the intentional provision or gathering of monies for terrorist purposes and creating efficient mechanisms to freeze and prevent terrorists from accessing funds.
• Diplomacy and international cooperation: By cutting off the terrorists' access to the resources they require to survive, diplomacy aids in bringing the conflict to the terrorists.
• Legal frameworks and judicial cooperation: Various laws have been passed in India to combat terrorism such as Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 {as amended by the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2004} and the National Security Act, 1980.
• Hot pursuits and surgical strikes: "Hot Pursuit" and "Surgical Strikes" counter terrorism. Since the military's cross- LoC counter-terror campaign, India has used these phrases. June 2015 saw India's new counter-insurgency (CI) strategy.

Institutional Framework to Deal with Terrorism 

Natgrid

• It was part of the radical overhaul of the security and intelligence apparatuses of India.
  To track potential terrorists and stop terrorist attacks, NATGRID will use technologies like big data and analytics to analyse vast volumes of data from various intelligence and law enforcement organizations.
• Functions: It is a counter-terrorism measure that collects and collates a host of information from government databases including tax and bank account details, credit card transactions, visa and immigration records and itineraries of rail and air travel.
  This combined data will be made available to 11 central agencies.

Multi Agency Centre (MAC)

• After the Kargil war, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) established a common counterterrorism grid, which became operational in 2001.
• Functions: It serves as a node for many agencies to share intelligence inputs.
  1. It is in Delhi, while state capitals have subsidiary MACs (SMACs), where daily meetings are held to review contributions received over the preceding 24 hours.
  2. Its mandate is to share terrorism-related intelligence inputs on a day-to-day basis.
  3. All organisations that are involved in the fight against terrorism in any way are members of this centre.

National Investigation Agency 

• The National Investigation Agency (NIA) was constituted under the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act, 2008.
• It is a central agency to investigate and prosecute offences:
  1. affecting the sovereignty, security and integrity of India, security of State, friendly relations with foreign States. 
  2. against atomic and nuclear facilities.
  3. smuggling in High-Quality Counterfeit Indian Currency. 
  4. It implements international treaties, agreements, conventions and resolutions of the United Nations, its agencies and other international organisations.

It’s objective is also to combat terror in India. It acts as the Central Counter-Terrorism Law Enforcement Agency

Conference on Counterterrorism Financing Known as "No Money for Terror"

• The French government launched the conference "No Money for Terror" (NMFT) in 2018, with the goal of concentrating on international collaboration to stop funding for terrorism.
• Pillars: To preventing the financing of terrorism, the following pillars were proposed as a strategy:
  1. Establish a comprehensive monitoring structure incorporating all intelligence and investigative agencies in cooperation, coordination, and collaboration.
  2. The "Trace, Target, and Terminate" approach should be used to combat both minor and more sophisticated organised economic crime.
  3. Enhancing and harmonising the legal frameworks governing the financing of terrorism, and creating a strong system to prevent the abuse of next-generation technology.
  4. Strengthening the basis for legal and regulatory asset recovery.