Author: Kingshuk Nag
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 31, 2008
Four days after the Ahmedabad blasts, Bangladesh
is emerging as the deadly link to the bloody affair. The connection is not
only through the Harkatul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI), the Bangladeshbased outfit
which is believed to have masterminded the operations in cahoots with SIMI.
The link is also through the over two million illegal Bangladeshi immigrants
who have crossed over to India in the last three decades.
Intelligence officials believe these illegal
Bangladeshis are not only providing a haven to HuJI men but are also extending
other services to them, including material required for assembling bombs.
''Although Bangladeshis enter India illegally in search of economic opportunities,
some of them get into jihadi activities. If not directly then indirectly,''
said a central intelligence official. These officials say the arc of terror
has widened in India because migrants have spread their enclaves to various
parts of the country. Starting with border districts of Bengal, Assam and
Tripura in the 1980s, Bangladeshis are now in Delhi, Jaipur, Bikaner, Ahmedabad,
Mumbai, Bangalore, Mysore and Hyderabad.
A former BSF officer believes around 400 Bangladeshis
enter India daily through Murshidabad, Malda and Cooch Behar in West Bengal.
This makes their number 12,000 a month and 1.5 lakh a year. Most of these
illegal migrants are tradesmen: lowend fitters, locksmiths, painters, cutters,
welders, rickshaw-pullers, cyclewallahs or labourers. ''These are the sort
of persons whose services come in handy for assembling bombs,'' an intelligence
official said, adding that the HuJI has deliberately given up the use of RDX
to avoid detection.
The Ahmedabad bombs were assembled from gelatine
sticks and used potassium and sodium. Shrapnels were put in the improvised
bombs. Such stuff can be carried separately without any suspicion. Of course,
a timer and detonator was added. ''This is fairly unsophisticated technology
which even locally based operatives can put together,'' a source said. This
does not mean that educated men are not involved; in fact it's such people
who provide ideological basis for terrorism.
