GUWAHATI, May 1 – Growing presence of terrorist outfits including the Al Qaeda in the neighbouring country Bangladesh poses a serious security threat not only to the North Eastern region of India but also to the entire country and the recent arms haul in Chittagong port has sent shock waves among the security agencies as it is believed that the arms were on their way to India. Highly placed security sources told The Assam Tribune that the arms recovered recently in Bangladesh included AK series rifles, Uzi sub machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, 1.84 crore rounds of ammunition, etc and were enough to arm a whole division of the Indian Army. The total worth of the ammunition would be more than Rs one thousand crore. According to reports available with the security agencies, the arms were loaded in a port in Malaysia and reached Chittagong port of Bangladesh. Sources said that a ship owned by the brother of ruling party Parliament Member Salauddin Kedar Choudhury was used to tranship the weapons and those were unloaded in the jetty of the Fertiliser Corporation of Bangladesh. The weapons were loaded in 20 trucks in presence of local police but those had to be seized only after a team of the paramilitary forces detected the same and informed the higher authorities, sources added. Though it is still not clear whether the Government of Bangladesh was aware of the arms movement, it is evident that some Government authorities knew about the movement of the weapons and though more than 150 persons were involved at the time of unloading of the weapons, only five persons were arrested.
The Government of India has already expressed its concern over the whole episode and sought for detailed report from the Bangladesh Government in this regard. But so far, the Government of the neighbouring country has not informed the Government the details of the findings of the enquiry in this regard. Security sources pointed out that no militant outfit operating in the North Eastern region of India is capable of bringing in such a large number of arms and ammunition at one go. There is possibility of a portion of the arms coming in to the militant groups of the region, but the possibility of the same being brought to arm the jehadi groups cannot be ruled out. Sources said that after the United States attack in Afghanistan, the Al Qaeda is shifting its base towards Bangladesh, while, the other jehadi groups like the Harkat Ul Mujahideen and Harkat Ul Jejadi Islami are also quite active in Bangladesh. Sources pointed out that the Jehadi groups are trying to establish their bases in the North Eastern region by taking advantage of the presence of a sizeable number of immigrant population and though the militant outfits like the MULTA and MULFA are still at their nascent stage in Assam, they may get stronger to pose a serious security threat if they receive arms and other support from the jehadi groups active in Bangladesh.
Sources said that the backbone of the Harkat Ul Majahideen in Assam was broken after the arrests of four agents of the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and subsequent arrests of 40 odd activists of the HUM in 1999 but nothing much of their present activities are known. The porous border with Bangladesh gives a chance to these groups to sneak into India and according to reports available with the security agencies, the militants who went for training in Pakistan from the North East region went through Bangladesh only.
The militants belonging to the North East based militant groups including the ULFA, NDFB, PLA, UNLF, ATTF all went for training in Pakistan through Bangladesh and the growing presence of the terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in the neighbouring country may pose a serious threat to the security of India in the days to come. Security sources also said that the top leaders of most of the main militant groups of the region are based in Bangladesh and despite repeated requests by the Government of India, the Government of the neighbouring country has not yet taken any step against them. Time and again the Government of India submitted lists of camps of the militants located in Bangladesh to the authorities of the neighbouring country, but they have been denying the presence of such camps.
The possibility of attempts by the groups like HUM and Al Qaeda to bring in weapons to India through the North East cannot also be ruled out. Sources said that the security along the Kashmir border with Pakistan has been tightened after the Kargil war and the pan-Islamic militants groups may try to sneak in weapons through the porous border in the North East and that is why the weapons might have been unloaded in Chittagong port.