NEW DELHI, Jan 12 — The North Eastern region of the country is sitting on a powder-keg as Pakistan’s ISI has been able to make substantial inroads into the region by covertly using the Bangladesh territory for carrying out its operations, reports PTI. A report submitted to the Government said the arrest of vice president of banned National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) Dhiren Boro in Sikkim on January 1 this year led to more information about how ISI was using the Bangladesh territory to carry out subversive activities in the north eastern region.
During interrogation, Boro, who was arrested along with his wife and two bodyguards from Gangtok on a tip-off to intelligence agencies, said that he had been holding important posts of NDFB. While stating that his outfits’s president Rajan Daimary and publicity secretary B Erakdao were at present in Banglaesh, the arrested ultra revealed that Daimary had also visited Pakistan in 1998 at the instance of a Naga outfit and he received political and administrative training there from the ISI. Boro said that Daimary had also arranged training of 10 NDFB cadres along with the Naga outfit in 1999 in Pakistan. The militants, who were trained in use of explosives and weapons, had gone to Islamabad via Dhaka. The revelation of the militant also highlighted the fact that his outfit was in liaison with a Naga outfit for supply of arms, ammunition and explosives to his group in Bangladesh against cash payment.
Another important cadre of NDFB Amarendra Daimary alias Organg, who was arrested in Jalpaiguri in West Bengal along with arms and ammunition and Rs 12 lakh, revealed during interrogation that the money was being taken to Cox Bazar in Bangladesh for purchase of arms and ammunition. The Bangladeshi agencies including army and police do not disturb the NDFB cadres in the camps located at Alikadam in Chittagong district, the arrested militant said. The report said that lately ISI had been channelising some of its anti-India operational activities from Bangladesh soil with a view to destablising the North Eastern region of the country.
Islamic fundamentalist organisations of Bangladesh including Islamic Chatra Shibir and Jamaat-e-Islami, offer a hospitable functional environment to the ISI, the report said quoting disclosures by ISI agents arrested in North East. The cropping up of some Muslim fundamentalist groups in the North East was a cause of some worry as fanatics in Bangladesh were providing them with weapons and all other logistic help, the report said. The earlier arrests in the North East including that of a Kashmiri ultra hailing from Kupwara district of North Kashmir set the alarm bells ringing about growing activities of ISI in the country and existence of its extensive network in Assam, it said. The interrogation report said that around 30 youths from the region had received training in ISI training camps and that they had either used Pakistani or Bangladeshi passports to travel to that place.
Sensational disclosures made by surrendered militants of All Tripura Tribal Front, Prasanta Debbarma and Hiren Debbarma showed that some of their cadres had even gone to Afghanistan for training. The duo had revealed that they went to Karachi from Dhaka and from there to Afghanistan and at both the places they were received by ISI agents. The training, according to them, had been imparted to them by Taliban leaders. After receiving the training, they came back to Dhaka and later sneaked into the Indian territory. Some more documents about the links of ULFA and Harkat-ul Jehadi Islamia have been recovered by security agencies that would further substantiate India's claim that Bangaldesh was being covertly used by ISI to sponsor terror campaign in the country.