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Updated: Apr 21, 2020 16:20 IST

Pakistani authorities have removed almost 4,000 names from a terror watch list, including nearly 1,900 names that were struck off since early March, according to a US-based tech firm that tracks watch lists globally.

While Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) maintains a list of banned terror groups, separate lists of proscribed terrorist individuals are maintained by authorities in the country’s four provinces.

The terror watch list of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province that has a sizeable presence of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), was analysed by California-based Castellum.AI for a report posted on the firm’s website on Sunday.

At its peak in October 2018, Punjab province’s “proscribed persons data” or terror watch list had about 7,600 names, according to a report from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Castellum.AI said in its report that some 3,800 names had been removed from this list “without explanation or notification to the public”.

The report further said that since March 9 this year, Pakistani authorities had removed some 1,869 names from the list. Of these, 1,069 names were struck off between March 9 and March 27, and about 800 were removed subsequently. All these names were placed in a “denotified” list, a term used in Pakistan to signify an official removal from a watch list.

Castellum.AI contended LeT operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhi, one of the alleged masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, was among those whose names were removed from the list. However, this couldn’t be independently confirmed.

Moreover, Castellum.AI cited the removal of a terrorist named Zaka-ur-Rehman from Zhob in Balochistan for the reference to Lakhvi in its report, claiming the name was an alias. However, Lakhvi hails from Okara in Punjab, where he was born and is not known to have operated in Balochistan.

Reports in the Pakistani media last week said names were removed from the terror watch list because it had “bloated” up to 7,000 names with multiple inaccuracies, such as the names of dead individuals, Afghan nationals, and names of untraceable persons.

Castellum.AI said there was also no explanation on NACTA’s website as to why about 3,800 names were removed from the terror watch list since October 2018. It said it was also not clear “why Pakistan publicly maintains the Denotified List if the individuals on it are dead or their listings have multiple inaccuracies”.

In February, Pakistan was given four months by the FATF to fully implement a 27-point action plan to counter terror financing and money laundering after the country failed to meet repeated deadlines to complete the programme. The FATF said Pakistan had so far delivered only on 14 of the points in the plan.

However, reports have suggested that Pakistan may have got a reprieve because of the Covid-19 crisis, with the multilateral watchdog putting off a review of the country’s performance till October.

“It is possible that these delistings are part of Pakistan’s efforts to implement FATF’s action plan, but not announcing removals or the reasons for them poses many challenges. FATF standards call for transparency in listing procedures,” Castellum.AI said in its report.

“Transparency supports due process for affected individuals and facilitates compliance. Obligated entities within Pakistan, as well as financial institutions who process Pakistan-related transactions globally, need clarity to effectively comply with AML/CFT (anti-money laundering/counter-financing of terror) laws and regulations,” it added.

Pakistan should clarify if individuals moved from the proscribed to denotified list are still a threat, state the reason for a list change, and identify the reason an individual was listed in the first place, Castellum.AI’s report said.