GUWAHATI, Feb 9— Over the years, the North Eastern region of India, particularly, Assam has been suffering because of the Government of India’s soft stand towards its “friendly neighbour countries” of Bhutan and Bangladesh, where the insurgents operating in the region are still taking shelter. Till date, the Government of India seems more concerned about its western border and Kashmir, while, the same problem facing the NE region is overlooked for the reasons best known to the persons at the helm of affairs at Delhi. Even in the present day context, when there is a world-wide campaign against terrorism, the Government of India failed to put pressure on the Governments of Bhutan and Bangladesh to evict the militants holed up in those countries.
Of late, the Government of India has been trying its best to put diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to hand over the terrorists taking shelter in that country, but the same kind of action is missing when it came to putting pressure on the Governments of Bhutan and Bangladesh to hand over the militants using those countries as safe sanctuaries. According to records available with the police and the security forces, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) have been maintaining bases in Bangladesh since the late 1990s and the leaders of the outfit came in touch with the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) through the Pakistani Embassy in Dhaka. Moreover, ISI took batches of ULFA men for training to Pakistan through Bangladesh. The security agencies also have reports that the two top leaders of the ULFA— the Commander-in-Chief Paresh Baruah and Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa still spend most of their time in Bangladesh. The arrests of four ISI operatives in Guwahati in 1999, followed by arrests of a number of Harkat-Ul-Mujahideen militants from different parts of the State also revealed the fact that Bangladesh is being used by the Pakistani agency to create problem in Assam but despite these disturbing facts, the Government of India has been maintaining a soft stand towards Bangladesh.
Moreover, it is a well-established fact that unabated infiltration of Bangladeshi nationals changed the demographic pattern in Assam and posed a grave security threat to the country as a whole, but till date even after 16 years of signing of the Assam accord for the detection and deportation of the Bangladeshi nationals, the Government failed to implement the accord. Not to speak of detection and deportation of Bangladeshi nationals, the Government has not yet been able to seal the border to prevent fresh infiltration, which speaks of the Government of India’s apathy towards the North Eastern region of the country. Moreover, so far the Government of India has not been able to take up the issues of infiltration and ISI’s action of using Bangladesh’s territory for creating disturbance in the NE with its counterparts in the neighbouring country strongly to force the Bangla Government to take action to check such menace.
As per reports available, the ULFA shifted its general and command headquarters to Bhutan in the early part of 1990s and both the ULFA and the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) are now operating from their safe havens in the neighbouring country, making it impossible for the security forces engaged in the counter-insurgency operations to check the level of violence. Time and again, the Government of Bhutan gave assurance tot he Government of India that they would not allow their territory to be used by the militants, but till date no step has been taken by the Government of the Himalayan kingdom to evict the militants camping in that country. About three thousand Bhutanese Army personnel were given training by the Indian Army in counter-insurgency operations to deal with the militants. They were also provided with sophisticated weapons like A K series rifles but the Government of Bhutan’s attempts to evict the militants has been limited to appeals to the leaders of the outfits only. Recently the Government of Bhutan has informed the Government of India of the ULFA’s action of shifting four camps, but security agencies are of the view that shifting of a handful of camps would not serve any purpose as long as the militants have strong bases in the neighbouring country.
Peeved at the failure of the Government of India to put pressure on the Government of Bhutan to evict the militants, the Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi recently commented that the Government of India had failed to put diplomatic pressure on the Government of the neighbouring country. After two mass massacres by the militants belonging to the NDFB in the areas bordering Bhutan, the Chief Minister demanded that immediate steps must be taken by the Government of India to erect a fencing along the Assam-Bhutan border and the process of deployment of the Border Security Force (BSF) in the border should be expedited. The Minister of State for Home, Pradyut Bordoloi also said that the security forces are fighting insurgency with their hands tied because of the fact that the militants sneak into their bases in Bhutan after each strike. He said that Assam has more than 260 kilometres of virtually unprotected border and it would be difficult to contain violence as long as the militants manage their bases in the neighbouring country.