According to the recent reports of a US-based start-up that automates watchlist compliance, Pakistan has silently removed around 1,800 terrorists from its watch list ahead of their new round of assessments by the global anti-money-laundering watchdog FATF.

The list also includes the exclusion of the 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind and LeT operations commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi.

The watchlist is reportedly maintained by Pakistan's National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA), in order to help financial institutions from doing any business with or processing transactions of suspected terrorists.

As per Castellum.AI's recent claims, the 2018 list consisted of about 7,600 names which have been reduced to under 3,800 over the past 18 months.

The outlet further added that about 1,800 of the names have been removed from that so-called list since the start of March 2020.

Pakistan is also working to implement a fully chalked out action plan which has already been mutually agreed to with The Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The plan also involves demonstrating effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions.

It might be possible that these removals are a part of Pakistan's plan to implement the FATF recommendations, the outlet further added.

Earlier in February, the FATF apparently did note that Pakistan has largely addressed 14 of 27 action items, which had varying levels of progress made on the rest of the action. A fresh evaluation will be made again in June.

Castellum.AI further claimed that it also searched for the Lashkar-e-Taiba leader's full name, Zaki Ur Rehman Lakhvi, on the Pakistan Proscribed persons' list. However, his name was not on it.

This may also mean that if the removed name is a false positive, Pakistan may not have added the Lashkar E Taiba leader to its terrorism watchlist.

(With PTI inputs)