INDIA has evidence social media platforms are being used to raise terror funds, NIA Director General Dinkar Gupta said on Thursday, underlining that the issue will be deliberated during a two-day international ministerial conference on countering terror financing.

Addressing a press conference ahead of the meeting beginning Friday, Gupta also said Pakistan and Afghanistan were not participating in the conference, while China was yet to confirm. The third ‘No Money for Terror Ministerial Conference on Counter-Terrorism Financing’ is being hosted by the Ministry of Home Affairs and will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and to be attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, among others.

Asked if Pakistan, China and Afghanistan were invited to the conference, Secretary (West), Ministry of External Affairs, Sanjay Verma said, “China has been invited.” He, however, remained silent on the other two neighbouring countries. Giving details of the conference, Gupta made it clear that no country-specific discussion is part of the agenda but representatives of 73 nations, including ministers of over 20 of them, will discuss with an open heart all issues, be it the source of terror, the threat or its funding. “Every participating country has full right to express its views,” he said.

Gupta said terror activities have declined in India during the last eight years, and there is a “huge reduction” in terror activities in all “theatres of conflicts”, be it Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, the northeast. He said it was a battle to be fought, and the country has to strengthen its infrastructure, mechanisms, and frameworks to fight this menace of global terrorism and its financing. To a question on the inclusion of social media platform regulation in the agenda of the terror financing conference, Gupta said social media platforms are being used to raise financing, funding or as crowdfunding platforms.