Author: Anil Bhat
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: November 7, 2008
URL: http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/opinion/op-ed/enough-evidence-to-go-for-terror's-jugular-in-bangla.aspx
Seventy-seven was the latest of figures of
those killed and over 300 were injured after as many as 13 bomb went off with
clockwork co-ordination in crowded areas of four districts, including the
capital of Assam, on October 30, 2008. Apart from being the worst series of
terrorist attacks over the two decades by United Liberation Front of Asom
(Ulfa) or any other group in Assam, they are also part of a well-planned agenda
- of making India's Dussehra to Diwali period as deadly as possible.
Of course, Ulfa categorically denied its hand
in these and ironically that could be the truth, but with a terrible twist.
In my article A season of surrenders in Assam: How long, how far? (July 29)
in The Asian Age, I wrote that Ulfa's top leadership in Dhaka had been working
hard at recruiting Bangladeshis to make up for heavy casualties suffered in
operations by the Army and police since late 2006 and its loss of public support.
Thereby it had no takers amidst the Assamese youth.
That many of these new Bangladeshi Ulfa "recruits"
are members of Bangladeshi wing of Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (Huji-B) got confirmed
on September 26 when, based on specific intelligence collected by mobile interceptors,
Army launched an operation killing seven terrorists who had made an entry
through Dhubri district bordering Bangladesh. Seven automatic pistols, three
radio sets, a large quantity of explosives, detonators and documents besides
Bangladeshi, Indian, and Chinese currency notes were recovered from the dead
terrorists. What also emerged was that in their plans of bomb blasts, Guwahati
was one of their main targets.
A look at the district map of Assam provides
pointers to the map of destruction on October 30. Going clockwise from Assam's
Western-most district, Dhubri, are the four targeted districts of Kokrajhar,
Bongaigaon, Barpeta and Kamrup, in which Guwahati is located. The attacks
owe its success to deployment of operatives in these districts, effective
networking and communication, sufficient quantity of explosives, transport
for mobility and money.
The relationship of Ulfa's top honchos in
Bangladesh with Huji-B dates back to 1992, and with their members coming as
reinforcements after Ulfa suffered severe manpower losses in a year of security
forces' operations, there will be no lack of motivation. So Dispur (Assam
government secretariat, also referred to as the Capital) should ensure sound
intelligence and gear up to try to preempt more attacks, which are bound to
follow.
Posted by jagoindia.com on May 26, 2008, is
a report, titled Survival 2007, co-authored by Aodangnok, president of the
Ao Students' Conference (Ao Kaketshir Mongdang, AKM), and Jamir, its vice-president
and convener, that merits mention here.
In pursuance of Survival 2007 campaign, the
AKM undertook a comprehensive investigation on the problem of unabated influx
of illegal migrants into the state and the region, particularly from Bangladesh:
"We discovered that although influx of illegal migrants to Nagaland is
purportedly economic-driven, the imminence of a sinister politico-religious
design of some external fundamentalist agencies cannot be ruled out".
Information they garnered was:
The Muslim League had in 1947, prior to India
and Pakistan's Independence, drawn a political map of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)
which indicated the whole of present-day Northeast India falling within East
Pakistan territory. Basing on this, some utopian fundamentalist Islamic agencies
are reportedly endeavouring to carve out an Islamic state out of NE India
and then assimilate it with Bangladesh to form "Greater Bangladesh"
or "Brihot Bangladesh" or "Bangistan," as they term their
utopian Islamic State.
Brigadier D.K. Bux of Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), and Abdul Hasan Muadish, founder of Jamat-e-Islam, met
in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on December 15, 2004 and jointly declared "Operation
Pin Code". The reported objective of Operation Pin Code is to cause havoc
and corruption in Northeast India. The Islamabad-based Islamic Development
Bank has sanctioned $35 million for the Operation. Muttahida Jihad Council
(United Jihad Council) of Jammu and Kashmir is also reported to have been
roped in to spread bloodshed in India's Northeast region.
The Islamic Bank of Saudi Arabia sponsors,
up to a sum of Rs 100,000, any Muslim migrant who marries a local woman. This
perhaps helps them further their utopian and sinister design of Islamitisation
of Northeast India by distorting the very social fabric of the indigenous
peoples of the state and the region.
The Muslim Liberation Front of Burma, led
by Maulana Abdul Qadir Mullah, is cooperating with the Bangladeshi Islamic
extremists to further their cherished dream of carving out "Greater Bangladesh".
This nexus is financed by the Saudi Arabia-based Rabitat-al-Islami.
Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islamic (Huji), under the
leadership of Sheikh Farid and based in Chittagong, Bangladesh, was formed
under the patronage of Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda to further their "Greater
Bangladesh" dream.
Further, AKM once again strongly reiterates
that not a single illegal migrant shall be allowed to walk the Naga soil within
"our traditional jurisdiction".
Pakistan's military establishment and ISI
have effectively exploited India's communal politics and succeeded in establishing
a country-wide terrorist network with tie-ups and outsourcing. It is high
time that India's leaders at the Centre and states avoid clichéd rhetoric
and political semantics and instead tighten intelligence and optimise security
resources to go for terror's jugular without getting side-tracked by new nomenclatures.
- Anil Bhat, a retired Army officer, is a
defence and security analyst based in New Delhi
