FM admits to terror trail in the stock market

Terror targetted at India could be funded by playing the stock markets, is something that has been suspected for some time now, what with National Security Advisor, M K Narayanan raising the concern at the 43rd Conference on Security Policy in Munich in February this year.

This time, it's straight from the Finance Minister's mouth, who says that the Government is probing one possible case of investment in share markets, which is suspected to be funded by terror organisations.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram, speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, said investigations were on at the moment."Recently one case has been noticed. We suspect it could be linked to terror," Chidambaram said in Parliament.

This is the first time the government has made a public admittance to suspected terror funding in stocks.

Earlier, former National Security advisor M K Narayanan, had said at the 43rd Conference on Security Policy in Munich in February that terrorist groups were raising funds by manipulating stock exchanges.

Narayanan had not given any specific names at that time, though he had mentioned reports of isolated incidents of terrorist outfits manipulating stock markets to raise funds for their operations.

At that time, Chidambaram had responded to Narayanan's concerns by asking SEBI, RBI and other agencies to keep a close watch on such illegal activities.
Source: IBNLive