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Author: Bhuvneshwar Prasad
Publication: The Times of India
Date: February 13, 2006
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1411823.cms
Hedged in by both inter-state and international borders Kishanganj district in Bihar has, for long, been a happy hunting ground for Pakistan's ISI and Nepalese Maoists.
Due to the district's strategic geo-political significance and close proximity to the Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bangladesh borders, the ISI and Nepalese Maoists have in recent years increased their activities in Kishanganj besides using it as a conduit for those who sympathise with their cause in India.
Moreover, because of ethnic similarly, life-style and language affinity, these elements easily assimilate into the mainstream to carry out their nefarious design in this sensitive border district.
Intelligence sources say ISI operatives have been lately using Bangladesh for launching covert operations against India focusing on talent recruitment at transit-points, providing fake travel and identity documents to terrorists, providing shelter and safe meeting places, channelising funds and pumping in fake currency into India.
"Several Indian militant outfits have significance presence in Bangladesh and the long and porous Indo-Bangladesh border provide them easy entry points for both men and material to carry out subversive activities in India," the sources said.
"They are assisted and provided both overground and infrastructural support by some Bangladesh-based organisations," the sources added.
While the eastern side of the district is exposed to ISI subversives, security forces are concerned over growing influence of Left-wing extremism on the western side.
"What has also become a matter of serious concern for both Indian intelligence and security agencies is the growing proximity between the ISI subversives and Maoists," the sources disclosed.
It is against this backdrop of the ever-increasing influences of these anti-India forces that the Union government have deployed the Border Security Force (BSF) on the eastern flank of this sensitive border district with sector headquarters in Kishanganj town.
Similarly, the Sashashtra Seema Bal (SSB) has been deployed to man the Indo-Nepal border located on the western flank of the district. The SSB too has its sector headquarters here.
Kishanganj SP Sunil Kumar Sinha lauded the efforts of BSF and SSB for successfully reining in the anti-Indian elements.
SSB assistant commandant, Manvendra Singh claimed that the deployment of his forces along the 114 km long Bihar-Nepal border in Kishanganj had help in checking easy infiltration of ultras from Nepal.
On their part, BSF sources said erecting barbed fencing along the Indo-Bangladesh border, besides checking trans-border crimes like narcotics trafficking and cattle smuggling, has helped in beefing up surveillance.
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