No specific input that terrorists investing in markets: Government

NEW DELHI: Government today said it has not received any specific input that terrorists are investing money in share markets

Minister of State for Home R P N Singh, however, said the suspicious transaction reports received from securities market intermediaries suspected to be linked to financing of terrorism is subject to detailed assessment and examination by Central intelligence and investigation agencies.

"This is a continuous/ ongoing process," he said in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha.

Addressing the Interpol General Assembly in Rome on November 5, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde had said that stock markets were emerging as a new mode for terrorists to route their illicit money into the country's economy and leverage it to carry out their nefarious design.

"It is a cliche to say that terror-funding is the lifeblood of terrorism. Credible intelligence suggests that terrorist outfits are investing in stock markets through spurious companies, setting up fictitious businesses and laundering money," he had said.

Shinde had later refused to name the groups but said "we have information that a number of (such) elements are investing in the stock exchange".

There have also been reports that Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba's frontal organisation Jammat-ud-Dawa had invested a large sum of money in some private entities through Karachi Stock Exchange, sources said.