NEW DELHI, Dec 29: Buoyed by Bhutan?s operation against Indian insurgents, India will seek to build pressure on Bangladesh for a similar action against the north-eastern insurgents? camps on its soil by raising the matter at a high-level meeting here next week, reports PTI. A list of 180 camps operating in Bangladesh and 85 prominent insurgents based there will be handed over to Dhaka during the five-day Director General-level meeting of BSF and Bangladesh Rifles being held here from January 6, official sources told PTI.
During the meeting, which will be attended by top officials of Ministries of Home and External Affairs, the Indian side will ask Bangladesh to shut down or destroy these camps and hand over the insurgents wanted for various crimes here, they said. The list mentions specific location of each camp and points out the groups running these. Bangladesh has been denying existence of any such camp in that country, insisting that it would not allow any anti-India activity on its soil. Brushing aside these denials, the sources said the number of these camps had in fact been increasing with 25 such new formations being detected recently.
The number of such camps stood at 155 till recently and the Indian side had given their list with location to Bangladesh at the last biennial BSF-BDR DG-level meeting in April this year. On Bangladesh?s response so far, a top official said, ?They say they have checked up and found no such camps. We would like to believe them (Bangladesh). But we know militants come here from that side after training. We have caught many of such men,? he added.
These establishments are receiving patronage from fundamentalist elements in Bangladesh besides support from Pakistan?s ISI whose activity in that country has been seeing constant increase, the official said. Intelligence reports have also suggested presence of Al-Qaeda in Bangladesh and ?such information cannot be ignored?.
The concentration of camps has been seen in Khagrachar, Bandarban and Rangamati mountainous tracts of Chittagong Hills besides those scattered in Cox Bazar and Maulvi Bazar districts, the sources said. Camps have also been detected in Habibganj, Sylhet, Sherpur and Kurigram, they said. The camps include those run by the ULFA, National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM), they said. The list also includes training camps run by People?s Liberation Army (PLA), Muslim United Liberation Tiger of Assam (MULTA), Achik National Volunteer Council, Chakma National Liberation Front (CNLF), and Dima Halam Daoga, they said.
The Indian side will also raise the issue of the nagging problem of illegal immigration from neighbouring country at their last meeting besides that of joint patrolling. At their last meeting, both sides had agreed in-principle to start joint patrolling from July one but it became an uncertainty after Dhaka failed to respond to New Delhi?s draft for the last five months.The proposal for joint patrolling, under which both BSF and BDR, would move together on their own side of the 4,900-km border at selected time and place, was mooted with an aim of ending friction over illegal immigration which India considers to be posing a serious threat to its national security. BSF then prepared a draft on the modalities and sent it to the Bangladesh side in June for its approval. However, Dhaka has been silent on the matter since then.