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India suspects Bangladeshi officials of helping insurgents

Nitin Gogoi in Guwahati

Although relations between India and Bangladesh have improved, militants working against India are still getting refuge in that country, highly placed intelligence sources in Guwahati have said. Some senior officials of the Bangladesh government are hand in glove with these militants, they say.

Last month, chairman of the banned militant outfit National Democratic Front of Bodoland Ranjan Daimary was let off after being picked up by the Bangladesh police. Daimary, who was picked up near Dhaka for unlawful entry into the country, was let off on the intervention of senior government officials.

By the time the Indian government came to know about the incident, it was too late. Indian officials believe Daimary is still in Bangladesh.

Official sources said senior leaders of the United Liberation Front of Asom, including its chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, commander-in-chief Paresh Baruah, foreign secretary Sasha Choudhury and others, are in Bangladesh and use Bangladeshi passports.

Rajkhowa visited Thimphu, the Bhutanese capital, in April using a Bangladeshi passport, traveling via Thailand. In fact, ULFA leaders are in possession of two or three Bangladeshi passports each and the organisation maintains a communication centre in Bangladesh to control its operations. The Indian government has definite information of some ULFA camps in Bangladesh, sources added.

The arrest of ULFA general secretary Anup Chetia by Bangladesh police on charges of unlawful entry into the country was only a face saving measure to show the world that Bangladesh is not harbouring Indian insurgents, Indian officials say. They point out that despite pressure from the Indian government, Chetia was not extradited.

The sources said that events took a turn for the worse in 1997 when a four member delegation of the ULFA, including Rajkhowa, Chetia and Sasha Choudhury went to Geneva to attend a meet of the Unrepresented Nations Peoples Organisation.

The permanent representative of India in the United Nations Arundhati Ghosh objected to their presence and raised the issue of the murder of social worker Sanjoy Ghosh by the ULFA. Finding themselves in a tight corner, the ULFA leaders were forced to leave Geneva.

According to the sources, they went straight to the Bangladesh High Commission in Geneva from the venue of the meet. Some officials arranged their return trip to Bangladesh to prevent their arrest by Interpol as they were carrying Bangladeshi passports. Their arrest could have been a major source of embarrassment to the Bangladesh government.

Sources said that the charges under which Chetia was arrested could have been used to arrest other ULFA leaders too, but the Bangladesh government took no such step, giving rise to speculation that Chetia's arrest was a mere face saving measure.

Apart from ULFA, Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence and Islamic militant outfits are also using Bangla soil to foment trouble in Assam and other north-eastern states. Arrested ISI and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen operatives have revealed that the ISI was taking Assamese youngsters for training in Pakistan through Bangladesh.

Indian officials are aware that ISI agents and Islamic militant outfits frequent a mosque in the Rajshahi area and the Noorani Madrassa at Yatribari near Dhaka in this connection.

Immediately after coming to power, the Sheikh Hasina government tightened the screws on the ULFA forcing it to shift its headquarters to Bhutan. However, of late the government is under pressure from various quarters to go easy on the outfit. Some top government officials with links to the militant groups are behind this move.

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