ISI Shadow in NE
Two dozen outfits have links:
The most influential armed group of the North-east, the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) has links with the Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan. That is known. But what is awful for the people of the region is that 24 banned outfits maintain close ties with Pakistani agencies.
This was learnt during interrogation of an ISI operative, arrested by the Assam police recently. The more shocking revelation for the nation is that the alliance has placed the insurgent groups into the clutches of Islamic militants slowly but steadily.
The Assam police believe the information is a breakthrough for warding off terrorism in the North-east. The police claim to have arrested a hardcore ISI operative in a special operation in Guwahati.
The accused has been identified as SM Alam alias Mujibullah Alam alias Asfi Alam. He is from Ajampur in the Uttara police station area of Dhaka. Alam has been recognised as an important ISI functionary in charge of Assam and the North-east.
Police say Alam is a member of the Jamait-e-Islami and Chatra Shibir (of Bangladesh) and joined the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in 1993. The middle aged Bangladeshi national also reportedly underwent training in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. He joined the Jamatul Mujahideen in 2005 and shifted to the restive North-east last year, with destructive plans. Alam confirmed the militant outfits’ ties with the ISI.
The issue was discussed in Parliament, too. “Available inputs indicate that some Indian insurgent groups active in the north-eastern region have been using the territory of Bangladesh and have links with Pakistan’s ISI,” Shriprakash Jaiswal, minister of state for home, said in the Rajya Sabha on December 5.
The minister, while admitting reports of alliances among the outfits for tactical purposes of shelter, hideouts, arms procurement and training, also said New Delhi had taken up the issue with Islamabad.
Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi said Ulfa was under the ISI’s grip, which is why it cannot come for talks. He also said the Ulfa leaders cannot defy the ISI’s diktat as many of its leaders are taking shelter in Bangladesh. Mr Gogoi believes that Ulfa is the prime communicator from the North-east with international terrorist outfits.
Talking to a New Delhi-based TV news channel on December 19, Gogoi claimed dreaded militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed had made inroads into Assam with the help of Ulfa leaders. Gogoi has often said Ulfa continues to have links with jihadi groups.
Earlier, a US Intelligence think-tank reported that Ulfa was going to increase financial enterprises and enhance links with Islamist militant groups. Stratfor, in one of its reports, stated that Ulfa leaders preferred to maintain their financial network with Pakistan’s Intelligence agency.
“Though India has largely turned a blind eye to militant groups operating in its far-flung Northeast,” the growing Islamisation of the region provides “more than enough reason for New Delhi to start paying closer attention to its north-eastern border,” the report said.
Concern is expressed in an editorial of The Assam Tribune, the oldest English daily of the region as, “It is a fact that presence of foreign nationals gave a chance to ISI agents and other fundamentalist forces having roots in Bangladesh to establish their bases not only in Assam but also in other states of the Northeast, which has posed a grave security threat to the nation.”
Quoting the revelation of the ISI operative, the editorial argued that it “highlights the gravity of the situation as the Pakistani agency can always engage militant outfits having links with it to create disturbance in this part of the country without sending its own men to do the dirty work”.
“All the security agencies involved in counter-insurgency operations must launch a coordinated effort to prevent the ISI and other fundamentalist forces inimical to India from establishing roots in the east, while at the same time coordination and Intelligence- sharing between the police forces of the North-east states must be improved to deal with the security threat. On its part, the Government of India must take steps to complete the border roads and fencing along the Indo-Bangla border and the strength of the Border Security Force should be increased along the international border,” it said.
Author: Nava Thakuria (Guwahati-based freelancer)
Posted On: The Statesman
The most influential armed group of the North-east, the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) has links with the Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan. That is known. But what is awful for the people of the region is that 24 banned outfits maintain close ties with Pakistani agencies.
This was learnt during interrogation of an ISI operative, arrested by the Assam police recently. The more shocking revelation for the nation is that the alliance has placed the insurgent groups into the clutches of Islamic militants slowly but steadily.
The Assam police believe the information is a breakthrough for warding off terrorism in the North-east. The police claim to have arrested a hardcore ISI operative in a special operation in Guwahati.
The accused has been identified as SM Alam alias Mujibullah Alam alias Asfi Alam. He is from Ajampur in the Uttara police station area of Dhaka. Alam has been recognised as an important ISI functionary in charge of Assam and the North-east.
Police say Alam is a member of the Jamait-e-Islami and Chatra Shibir (of Bangladesh) and joined the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in 1993. The middle aged Bangladeshi national also reportedly underwent training in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. He joined the Jamatul Mujahideen in 2005 and shifted to the restive North-east last year, with destructive plans. Alam confirmed the militant outfits’ ties with the ISI.
The issue was discussed in Parliament, too. “Available inputs indicate that some Indian insurgent groups active in the north-eastern region have been using the territory of Bangladesh and have links with Pakistan’s ISI,” Shriprakash Jaiswal, minister of state for home, said in the Rajya Sabha on December 5.
The minister, while admitting reports of alliances among the outfits for tactical purposes of shelter, hideouts, arms procurement and training, also said New Delhi had taken up the issue with Islamabad.
Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi said Ulfa was under the ISI’s grip, which is why it cannot come for talks. He also said the Ulfa leaders cannot defy the ISI’s diktat as many of its leaders are taking shelter in Bangladesh. Mr Gogoi believes that Ulfa is the prime communicator from the North-east with international terrorist outfits.
Talking to a New Delhi-based TV news channel on December 19, Gogoi claimed dreaded militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed had made inroads into Assam with the help of Ulfa leaders. Gogoi has often said Ulfa continues to have links with jihadi groups.
Earlier, a US Intelligence think-tank reported that Ulfa was going to increase financial enterprises and enhance links with Islamist militant groups. Stratfor, in one of its reports, stated that Ulfa leaders preferred to maintain their financial network with Pakistan’s Intelligence agency.
“Though India has largely turned a blind eye to militant groups operating in its far-flung Northeast,” the growing Islamisation of the region provides “more than enough reason for New Delhi to start paying closer attention to its north-eastern border,” the report said.
Concern is expressed in an editorial of The Assam Tribune, the oldest English daily of the region as, “It is a fact that presence of foreign nationals gave a chance to ISI agents and other fundamentalist forces having roots in Bangladesh to establish their bases not only in Assam but also in other states of the Northeast, which has posed a grave security threat to the nation.”
Quoting the revelation of the ISI operative, the editorial argued that it “highlights the gravity of the situation as the Pakistani agency can always engage militant outfits having links with it to create disturbance in this part of the country without sending its own men to do the dirty work”.
“All the security agencies involved in counter-insurgency operations must launch a coordinated effort to prevent the ISI and other fundamentalist forces inimical to India from establishing roots in the east, while at the same time coordination and Intelligence- sharing between the police forces of the North-east states must be improved to deal with the security threat. On its part, the Government of India must take steps to complete the border roads and fencing along the Indo-Bangla border and the strength of the Border Security Force should be increased along the international border,” it said.
Author: Nava Thakuria (Guwahati-based freelancer)
Posted On: The Statesman