Author:
Publication: News Insight
Date: August 26, 2004
For nearly three weeks now, the
Union home ministry has been sitting over a damaging report about a Union
minister's arms smuggling activity from Bangladesh and his burgeoning contacts
with Nepal's Maoist insurgents.
The report prepared by the security
agencies came on the direction of prime minister Manmohan Singh, who was
dissatisfied with the vetting of the minister at swearing in, since his
activities had been described as "suspicious".
Deeper investigations reveal that
the minister is actively colluding with Bangladeshi arms smugglers and
is backing gun-running activities for the last two years on the Bihar-West
Bengal border and in such places as Buxar, Katihar, Siliguri, Jalpaiguri,
Purulia, Murshidabad, and Dinajpur.
In the recent general elections,
the report says, he was the main arms supplier for the cadres of a particular
regional political party.
"The report was sent to the home
ministry more than three weeks ago," an official disclosed, "but no action
has been taken so far."
The junior minister in the Manmohan
government first came under agency scanners when the West Bengal Police
arrested two ISI contacts with links to him three years ago.
