India suggests Aadhaar-like IDs, realtime alert system for financial transactions across BRICS nations

While the BRICS nations have been discussing ways to tackle terrorism for a long time, India has a new suggestion to offer to address the issue. The proposal is to introduce an Aadhaar-like unique identification number for every individual and company across BRICS nations, reports The Economic Times.

To keep a check on suspicious transactions in any of the BRICS nations, India has suggested realtime alert system and also proposed a uniform format for recording and reporting transactions of banks.

“Earlier, it was a request-based alert. So during the course of investigation, if we found any foreign transaction happening, we raised a request to get details from the country concerned. This process consumes a lot of time,” said a senior official.

“Most of the time, investigators are clueless about foreign transactions. So if we raise an alert immediately and provide the relevant information to the concerned country, we can have an effective investigation conducted on terror financing that involves several countries,” the official added.

An example of how transaction alerts can help keep a check on activities of terrorists is an investigation probe in Bangladesh. In the neighbouring country, a few months ago,investigators had stumbled upon information leading to an economic fraud. A further probe revealed that the fraud led to financing of a Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) module in West Bengal’s Burdwan district.

During a meeting attended by BRICS nations’ joint working group on strategy for counter terrorism and tackling terrorism financing that started from April 18, India’s participation included a seven-member team comprising senior officials of the Union ministries of home and external affairs, National Security Guard and Enforcement Directorate.