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How India's north east gets terror pounding
Vicky Nanjappa
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October 31, 2008 18:28 IST

Various theories are being attached to the constant targetting of India's north eastern states. Intelligence Bureau officials confirm that the mantle of infiltrating into the north eastern states is in the hands of the Bangladesh-based Director General of Forces Intelligence.

View: Everyone is clueless on Assam

According to the IB, there are 32 terror groups that are under DGFI's control. While the DGFI depends heavily on Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami to undertake major operations in the north east, the rest of the outfits are mainly involved in collection of intelligence and infiltration in order to set up camps.

According to the IB, a majority of the infiltration into the north east takes place through the Barapeta region in Assam. Such infiltration has been taking place since the past several years and the need of the hour is to have a well defined defence line up on the lines of Kashmir.

While Pakistan has handed over the mantle of fighting the Kashmir battle to the Inter Services Intelligence, DGFI has been handed over the responsibility of fighting for control over the North Eastern states.

Moreover, the ISI was finding it difficult to infiltrate into India through Kashmir since security is tight in those areas. The ploy was then to strengthen the base camps in Bangladesh.

Outfits such as HuJI have realized over the years that it was impossible to operate without local support. Hence, they decided to take the help of local modules. However, they have also realized that local groups such as ULFA have a specific agenda and at times, due to difference in ideology they may not be able to undertake all operations in association with their local groups.

Hence, in areas of Assam, they have used persons -- who have infiltrated into the state -- to set up local modules. These modules unlike the ULFA do not have a separate agenda and directly report to the Bangladesh-based outfits.

What the local modules do:
The DGFI has directed these local modules in north east to gather intelligence, both political and military. These modules also hold talks with local groups and seek intelligence and logistic support.

The IB says that in the coming years the problem is going to increase. While diplomatic efforts with Bangladesh to counter this menace may take a while, the best way to deal with the problem is to break the local modules.



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