India To Host "No Money For Terror" Conference, 72 Nations To Participate

India is going to use its security lens to highlight how it has been a victim of terror and problems it has been facing for the past few decades in a two-day "No Money For Terror" event starting Friday.

Representatives of 72 countries will attend this conference. Pakistan and Afghanistan have not been invited, although China has been asked to participate.

"We have invited China," said Sanjay Verma, Secretary, External Affairs Ministry, told reporters. China's confirmation, however, is awaited.

"In all, 88 organisations are participating, including 15 multilateral organisations such as the FATF and Interpol," he said.

This is the third in a series of conference after two back-to-back conferences - Interpol and counter terrorism UN meet in Mumbai.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the conference, where the participants will discuss issues linked to terrorism and terror financing.

There will be four sessions in the two-day conference, and all would be chaired by ministers.

"Issues like cryptocurrency and crowdfunding are going to be discussed at length," a senior official said.

He said the funding needs to be choked to break the backbone of terrorism.

"The funding of terrorist activities often requires funds to be moved within or across jurisdictions. This might be done through official channels of the financial system remittances, or through unregulated channels or use of cash couriers. The informal system remains a preferred channel for terrorist groups because of cost effectiveness, efficiency (speed of transfer), reliability, lack of customer identification checks, lack of transaction records and tax evasion," he added.

"Misuse of social media for crowdfunding is common and there is consensus building among countries that it needs to be paid attention," National Investigation Agecy chief Dinkar Gupta said.

The security agencies have made detailed examples for presentations on how terror groups worldwide are engaging in sectarian conflicts - increasingly based on ethnic-nationalist and sectarian lines.

"It is noticed that substantial number of terrorist attacks continue to be perpetrated by local actors against local targets (state machinery) aimed at achieving local objectives, while there has been a noticeable effort by certain global terrorist organisations to perpetrate transnational attacks in the South Asian region," a senior officer said.