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| J&K-bound ultras get training in Bangladesh | | |
B L KAK
NEW DELHI, JULY 18: Classified intelligence reports make a pointed reference to Bangladesh-based terror groups that encoourage and train Jammu and Kashmir-bound Islamist jihadis. According to these reports,Harkat-ul-Jihad Islam (HUJI), a Bangladesh-specific terror group, has, in recent times, recruited hundreds of young Muslim fanatics for assisting their co-religionists in Kashmir in the "struggle for freedom from India".
If these reports were to be believed, Bangladesh hosts nearly 300 terrorist camps, many of them transplanted by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). Statistics available with the Union Home Ministry say that the Border Security Force (BSF) nabed at least 55 border-crossing militants in 2006 and at least two dozen this year.
The ISI operatives in the Pakistan Army and Pakistan Rangers across the international border in Jammu sector, these intelligence inputs reveal, have positioned trained and armed Bangladeshi militants at as many as 10 places across the border for being pushed into the Indian territory in twos and threes.
A senior intelligence specialist told EARLY TIMES that Dhaka's willingnes to join hands with India to fight terror "is not expected to bring any dramatic end to Bangladesh-launched terrorism in India". The specialist explained that in the absence of a political will on the other side, required results cannot be expected.
Not long ago, India almost hinted at the posibility of a few air raids on the camps in Bangladesh. This forced the Bangladesh Air Force to shop for modern fighters. But that costs lot of money. The only source for Bangladesh of real wealth is its gas fields. And the only buyer of gas can be India.
Bangladesh is surounded on three sides by India, and on the fourth by the Bay of Bengal. Anti-India feeling in Bangladesh is already an open secret. This notwithstanding, Dhaka has realised that it hardly has any strategic option but to get friendly with India. Even China, with which Bangladesh has a secret defence treaty, will be of little help.
Terrorist groups in Bangladesh would, according to present indications, continue with their mini-jihads. But Indian officials hope that Dhaka would now be more cooperative when India asks for intelligence on terrorist movements. Will Dhaka oblige India by ordering Bangladeshis to quit the Indian territory they are illegally occupying in Dhubri and Karimganj in Assam?
This question assumes importance in the context of yet another failure of Indian security agencies in Assam, where, according to the Assam government, Bangladesh has encroached upon more than 499.83 acres of its land in the Dhubri and Karimganj districts of the State. Asam Revenue Minister has already made it public in Guwahati that a total of 499.83 acres of the Assamese territory has been encroached upon and ocupied by Bangladesh after the boundary pillars were removed.
It is official: Assam shares a 272-km border with Bangladesh of which about 70 per cent has been fenced with barbed wire. Concrete pillars separate the remaining stretch of the border. The Assam government has taken up with the Centre the issue arising from the illegal occuption of a portion of Assamese territory by Bangladesh. The matter was dciscused at the Indo-Bangladesh joint border commission meeting. However, in the absence of New Delhi's tough stand against the illegal occupation, Bangladeshis continue to be in the possession of the Assamese territory.
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