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Jihad spreading to the northeast
Will Assam become the next battlefront of the jihadis? A Research and Analysis Wing report with the Prime Minister's Office says that Islamic fundamentalist outfits in the northeast state are being helped by the Pakistani Inter- Services Intelligence in their effort to create a separate state for Muslims. The file, dated March 13, 2002 (25-1-2002- NEA-982), states that infiltration from Bangladesh has altered the demographic pattern of the northeast.
"Bangladeshis constitute more than 35 per cent of the population in Nowgang, Sonitpur, Darrang, Dhubri, Dibrugarh, Goalpara, Cachar, Barpeta and Nalbari districts of Assam," says the report. They have apparently started to move towards the upper reaches of the northeast from Tripura and Assam resulting in 135 per cent increase in the Bangladeshi Muslim population in Arunachal Pradesh.
"The Border Security Force has 12 battalions on the Punjab-Pakistan border which is 500 km long whereas the 4,098 km-long Indo-Bangladesh border has just one jawan per kilometre," said a senior home ministry official. "Our focus has been on the Indo-Pak border and Srinagar. Inadequate forces and lack of political will have led to large-scale immigration which is being encouraged by the ISI to exert pressure on India's chicken neck."
As a result, Muslim insurgent groups have gained ground in Assam. Intelligence sources claim that militant outfits like the Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA) want a separate homeland for Muslims comprising Nowgang, Dhubri, Kamrup and Karimganj districts and Hailakandi of Cachar district. Their other demands include: a university for Islamic studies, 30 per cent job reservation in Central and state government services and adequate funds for madrasas and idgahs.
Most Muslim organisations are interlinked. The RAW report states that the Islamic Revolutionary Front of Manipur had established contacts with the ISI in Bangladesh in 1996. The same year People's United Liberation Front came to an understanding with the Meitei insurgents of Manipur.
"Many Muslim outfits in the northeast are funded by Jamaat-e-Islami, Islamic Chattra Shibir, Tabligh-e-Jamaat, Jamaat-e-Talba, Bangladesh Mujahid Bahini and Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami," says the report. All these organisations are backed by the ISI. The report says that subversive activities are being coordinated from the Pakistani high commission in Dhaka with the help of Bangladeshi intelligence.
In August 2001, 19 Harkat-ul-Mujahideen activists were arrested from Assam. They told interrogators that they were trained in Pakistan and had been receiving help from Islami Oikya Jote, a Bangladesh-based outfit. A recent addition to the radical outfits is the Islamic Security Force of India, which is active in Narrang district of northern Assam.
In a statement in the Assembly in April 2000, Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta had admitted the presence of the ISI in the state. "Assam Police have gathered sufficient evidence to prove that the ISI has been actively involved in fomenting violence and terrorism in the state," he said. Speeches of Pakistan-based militant leader Maulana Masood Azhar were widely circulated in the state.
However militant activities have
come down following a spate of arrests and surrenders. "Pressure from the
security forces has led to the surrender of many militants," says Inspector-General
Khagan Sharma of the Special Branch. "Since Islamic fundamentalism is on
a lower side in Assam, persuasion works."
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