India frets over Pakistan-Bangladesh nexus By Sultan Shahin According to Indian intelligence assessments, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is actively trying to realize its plan for a sovereign Islamic state in India's northeast, with full support from fundamentalist elements within Bangladesh government, army, bureaucracy and intelligence. Sources in India's Ministry of Home Affairs have told Asia Times Online that it has regularly been receiving reports of increased ISI activity in Bangladesh, and of tacit support extended to the ISI by the authorities there. With the ceasefire on the Kashmir border, militant outfits are increasingly using Bangladesh as a training ground rather then Pakistan-administered Kashmir, according to the sources. There are also reports that Pakistan nationals owing allegiance to different terrorist outfits have been using Dhaka as a transit point for entering India and Nepal, as well as an escape route. Delhi has on several occasions raised the issue with Bangladeshi authorities. But Dhaka has repeatedly denied all similar reports and statements made by Indian government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Lal Krishan Advani. Though ruling Indian politicians will not make an issue out of the alleged ISI activity for the next couple of months until general elections are over - the achievement of peace on the borders is a major poll plank for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - Asia Times Online has learnt that central as well as state intelligence officials are deeply concerned at the growing influence of the ISI at various levels in Bangladesh, and of the activities of a variety of secessionist militants and Islamic fundamentalists, many of whom have found refuge in Bangladesh. This has been particularly the case since the Bangladesh visit of Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf in July 2002, when additional ISI personnel were posted at the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka. The situation became even more favorable for the ISI after the assumption of power in October 2001 by the present four-party coalition led by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), with the help of pro-Pakistan fundamentalist elements. Also, in recent months militants have been flushed out from illegal camps in Bhutan and Myanmar, making Bangladesh an increasingly attractive alternative. India's seven northeast states are home to more than 200 different ethnic groups that include Christians, Hindus, animists, Muslims and even a tribe believed to be Jewish. More than 7,400 civilians, 2,100 security personnel and 4,500 alleged militants have died in a dozen ethnic and religious conflicts throughout the northeast since 1992. Asia Times Online has acquired a document prepared by a central security agency for top officials in the government. It makes the following points, inter alia: 1. The ISI has been instrumental, either directly or through the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka, to develop a nexus between Indian insurgent groups (IIGs), Islamic fundamentalists and criminal elements in Bangladesh. Besides assisting terrorists in the procurement of arms, ammunition and explosives, the ISI has been arranging meetings of terrorists of different hues to coordinate their activities. The ISI has also been helping IIGs in obtaining weapons and explosives from different places, including Thailand. The ISI has also been using the local media to generate anti-India sentiments. The editors of two newspapers, Prathan Alo and Itafaq, are said to be close to the ISI. 2. The ISI has plans to appoint Pakistan nationals, trained as maulvis (religious instructors) in madrassas (religious schools) and mosques in Bangladesh, particularly the ones that are situated on the India-Bangladesh border. They will also be used for a variety of anti-India activities. Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh (JEI/BD), a constituent of the present government, reportedly issued in January 2002 instructions to its districts amirs [heads] to provided help and shelter to ISI operatives. Its plans include setting up jihadi training camps (including those of HUJAI [Bangladesh militant outfit Harkat-ul-Jehadi-al-Islami] ) in Moulvi Bazar and Chittagong with an ISI controller in Cox's Bazar. 3. Top IIG leaders staying in Bangladesh, like Paresh Barua and Ranjan Daimary, have close links with the ISI. Others like Sashadhar Choudhary, ULFA [United Liberation Front of Assam, Julius Dorphang and Bobby Marwein (both HNLC [Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council] ), Dilash Marak and Jerome C Momin (both ANVC [Achik National Volunteers Council ]), Bishwamohan Debbarma (NLFT - National Liberation Front of Tripura ) and Ranjit Debbarma (ATTF - All Tripura Tiger Force ) are also known to have contact with the ISI through Bangladeshi security agencies. 4. Bangladesh has been used as a staging point for sending members of both IIGs and jihadi groups to Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as their infiltration into India. The surrendered ATTF militants (3), revealed in October 2002 that its cadres (8) who were flown via Dhaka had received six months training at Kandahar (Afghanistan). Two senior leaders of NDFB [National Democratic Front of Bodoland] (Dhiren Boro, vice president and Gobinda Basumatary, general secretary) arrested in December, 2002 and January 2003 respectively also revealed the help they received from the ISI in training of its cadres in Pakistan. These, too, were sent through Dhaka. The interrogation of ULFA leaders including Pradip Gogoi (vice chairman, presently in jail) and Lohit Deori revealed that several batches of ULFA cadres were flown to Pakistan from Dhaka for training arranged by the ISI. 5. The interrogation of Asghar Ali (resident of Nalgonda, Andhra Pradesh), the person believed responsible for the killing of Haren Pandya, former Gujarat home minister, revealed that Indian Muslim youths (8) were sent in December 2002 through Bangladesh to Pakistan for training. Qari Salim, an ISI operative and a Hizbul Mujahideen cadre who was arrested in Guwahati in 1999, had revealed that he had come via Bangladesh and was tasked to carry out sabotage on the Leh-Manali Highway. The persons involved in conspiracy of the hijacking of [flight] IC-814 from Kathmandu in December 1999 had used Bangladesh for their movement to India from Pakistan. 6. Pakistan Intelligence Officers (PIOs) in Dhaka are becoming increasingly active in espionage against India. In 2002, three modules being run by PIOs from Dhaka, and using some Bangladesh operatives, was busted. A large number of secret documents and photographs of sensitive defense locations were recovered from one Ziauddin Ahmed Biswas (resident of Murshidabad in West Bengal), arrested on November 17, 2002. Later, the arrest (December 2002 in Lucknow, UP) of a Bangladesh national, Mohammad Mamunur Rasheed, led to the recovery of fake travel documents and also incriminating documents indicating a plan to recruit Indian Muslim youths for training in Bangladesh and Pakistan for subversive activities within India. Another report submitted to top officials by Indian central and state intelligence agencies said earlier that Bangladesh's soil was being used by at least 80 militant training camps run by "rabidly anti-Indian Islamic militant organizations". The report says that these training camps were set up by secessionist militant organizations like ULFA, NDFB and the NLFP and the Chakma National Liberation Front (CNLF), with the active support and patronage of the Bangladesh government. It is hardly any secret that the ISI has close links with Bangladesh's Directorate General of Forces' Intelligence (DGFI) and operates openly and freely in that country. It not only helps coordinate the activities of al-Qaeda and fundamental Islamic militant groups like the HUJAI, but actively assists, through organizations like the latter as well as the DGFI, secessionist outfits operating in northeast India. According to an intelligence report, HUJI, which is often called the Bangladeshi Taliban, and which has close links with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, runs six training camps for ULFA terrorists in the Chittagong Hill Tracts across the border from Tripura in India. According to West Bengal state intelligence officials, while ULFA training camps have been organized by the sector headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), training camps of the CNLF have been organized partly by 103 and 105 Infantry Brigade of the Bangladesh Army at Khagrajori and Rangamati. The location and other details of training camps as reported by intelligence agencies, run in different areas of Bangladesh, are as follows: While the central intelligence agencies are concerned about the manner in which Bangladesh is allowing its soil to be used for anti-India activities in the overall security context, the West Bengal state government is particularly worried because it shares a border with Bangladesh, and there have been several instances of Indian militants using the state and its capital as a transit point for entry into Dhaka. The problem of illegal immigrants from the neighboring country is another area of concern. The issue has figured prominently whenever West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has met Advani in the past months, either in Delhi or in Kolkata. He has been urging Advani to find an early solution to the problem. Indian Intelligence agencies have been concerned for several months now over reports that ISI agents based in Bangladesh are spreading their dragnet in Jambudwip and other parts of the Sunderbans. This is considered particularly dangerous from an Indian security point of view. Because of its near-inaccessibility, the Sunderban area has become an ideal zone for militant operations. The ISI has been reportedly eyeing the Sunderbans as a major route for future operations, ever since security measures were stepped up on the western theater. This is also believed to be the ISI's response to the Indian army's increasing presence in the northeastern sector during recent months that may have made anti-India operations increasingly difficult in that region. Between April and May last year, Bangladeshi agents of the ISI reportedly had at least three meetings with representatives of Jambudwip fishermen, trying to establish a rapport with them. The agents reportedly tried to convince the fishermen groups to help them ferry their "consignments" to fixed locations in India through the Sunderbans, and to ensure the entry of some of their trusted men from across the border into Indian territory. In return, the fishermen were promised lucrative rewards and fishing rights in Bangladeshi waters. The move has reportedly been in response to close vigil having been intensified along the North Bengal corridor and Nadia. Several Bangladeshi ISI agents, including one Tariq Aziz, are said to be involved in the operation. The idea is to facilitate the transport of trained militants as well as weapons cargo meant for insurgent groups in the northeast through specific locations in West Bengal and Orissa that have been already earmarked by ISI officials. All this is believed to be part of the ISI pursuing the objective of creating a separate Islamic country. This has been known since at least August 8, 1999 when Assam police achieved a major breakthrough, busting an ISI network in the state, nabbing 31 people, including two ISI officers and 27 militants belonging to different Islamic militant outfits. The arrest led to the unearthing of an ISI design to convert Assam and some parts of its neighboring states, including Tripura, into a separate Islamic country. During interrogation, confessions were made that they had been sent by the ISI to carry out specific operations in the northeast. They also unveiled the plan of the ISI in the northeastern region, mainly in Assam. Its objectives were: Indian intelligence agencies believe that the northeast has become the new and safe destination, mainly due to a virtually open Bangladesh-Assam and Bangladesh-Tripura border and a favorable demographic pattern along the border villages. The present lull in militant activities on the Jammu and Kashmir border as also the need of the ruling politicians to keep quiet has come in handy for the ISI to intensify its activities in Bangladesh and on the Bangladesh-India border. Anticipating allegations of harboring militants by New Delhi during the recent South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Islamabad, Dhaka cracked down on militants. Indian intelligence officials, who monitor Bangladesh, had told the Hindustan Times that they had credible information that the Bangladesh Rifles had seized a huge quantity of arms and ammunition - including anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, grenades and rocket-launchers - from two different places in the past 48 hours. The arms and ammunition belonged to the ULFA, the intelligence officials said. But it now seems that following the SAARC summit, Dhaka has resumed its quiet cooperation with the ISI and militant Islamic fundamentalists who are bent upon destabilizing the region, something that has the potential of emerging as a bigger headache for India than even Pakistan. |
__._,_.___
