Context

To take action against “hard core sympathisers amongst government employees, including teachers, who are providing covert or overt support” to terror-related activities, the Ministry of Home Affairs has formed a Terror Monitoring Group (TMG).

About

Terror Monitoring Group:

• It is a multi-disciplinary monitoring group under the Ministry of Home Affairs. The group will meet on a weekly basis.

Mandates of group:

• To ensure synergised, concerted and coordinated action against terror financing and other terror-related activities in Jammu and Kashmir and bring them to logical conclusion.
• TMG shall identify all key persons including leaders of the organisations who are involved in supporting terrorism in any form and take concerted action against them.
• It will investigate the networks of various channels being used to fund terror and terror-related activities and take action to stop flow of such funds.

Members:

• The seven-member TMG shall be headed by the Jammu and Kashmir additional director general of police (ADGP). It shall also have representatives from the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), National Investigation Agency (NIA), Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), and Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC). The Jammu and Kashmir police inspector-general shall be the seventh member of the TMG.
• However, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which has attached several properties in terror funding cases, did not find mention in the order.

Reasons for its creation:

• According to an estimate of the NIA, Pakistan-based terror groups finance terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir by generating millions in donations through their charity organisations. Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), a charity run by terror outfits Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and Al Rehmat Trust, backed by terror group Jaish-e- Mohammed (JeM), have been supporting militants and funding terrorism in Kashmir.
• The groups collect millions of dollars in donations through crowd funding in the name of social service.
• According to a 2012 report of an intelligence agency, 780 million Pakistani rupees were collected for funding terrorism in Kashmir.