Dialogue October - December 2005 , Volume 7 No. 2
Bangladesh-a Problem State
On
17 August 2005 there were 459 explosions in 63 of the 64 districts in
Bangladesh. All explosions occurred within a span of 30 minutes. It is obvious
that the explosions were synchronised. Two civilians were killed in the bomb
blasts. There were 28 blasts in Dacca, all directed at Government
establishments. The Jamiatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JUMB) claimed responsibility
for the blasts through leaflets left at the site of the explosions. Leaflets in
Bangla and Arabic said-“We are the soldiers of Allah. We have taken up arms
for the implementation of Allah’s law. It is time to implement Islamic law in
Bangladesh. There is no future with man made law.”1
The
serial incidents were not a surprise for Bangladesh watchers, particularly for
those who had been warning the Government of India that Bangladesh was
increasingly becoming an Islamist state. What was a surprise for the security
experts was the synchronising of 459 explosions across 63 of the 64 districts of
Bangladesh. This is a grim portend of the developments in this country.
The
euphoria generated by the liberation war of 1971 was misplaced. The Islamisation
of Bangladesh after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman has its origins
in the beginning of the 20
The
Liberation war of 1971 is all but forgotten by the people of Bangladesh. So is
the role played by the Indian Army. Sadly they have even forgotten their own
heroes of that war and the lakhs of people who were killed by the Pakistan Army
and the Razakhars. They have even forgotten the thousands of young girls
raped and killed by the Pakistan Army in that war. The Jamiat-e-Islami (JEI) of
Bangladesh who sided with the Pakistan Army in killing and raping Bangladeshi
men and women have now 17 seats with two ministers in the national government.
Among the most notorious of the Jamiat’s leaders was Abdul Khader Molla, who
became known as the butcher of Mirpur in 1971. He fled to Pakistan when
Bangladesh was liberated. Today he is back as the Publicity Secretary of the JEI.
Another leading collaborator was Ghulam Azam, who reportedly exhorted the
Pakistani Army to rid the country of anti Pakistani Bengali Muslims. He fled to
Britain after the liberation, but returned in 1978, after which he was protected
by every successive government, including that of Sheikh Hasina from 1996 to
2001. In 1991, Gholam Azam became the Amir of the JEI Bangladesh. It is pure
fiction that the Bangladeshis hate Pakistan. Many have a nostalgic attachment to
Pakistan and a mistrust of India. They now hate India. Their main aim is to
drive out the remaining Hindus and Buddhists in Bangladesh and then occupy the
northeastern states of India and the Arakhan State of Myanmar.
Illegal Migration
The
security threat from Bangladesh is much greater than that of Pakistan. Its
threat is four fold. The first threat is the continual migration from Bangladesh
into India. This is the only country in the world that pushes its citizens at
gunpoint across its borders. The problem of illegal migration at least into
Assam was created by the British East India Company, who first brought the
Bengali Muslim peasant from East Bengal to the Brahmaputra valley in the
beginning of the 19th century. Within
thirty years, the Bengali Muslim migrants had settled in four districts of Assam
clearing forest lands and cultivating waste lands and multiplied so fast that
the Census Commissioner C.S.Mullen wrote prophetically in his Census report of
1931-“Whither there is vacant land, thither goes the Mymensinghia. Without
fuss, without tumult, without undue trouble a population amounting to about half
a million has transplanted itself from Bengal to Assam during the last twenty
five years. A time will come when Sibsagar district will remain the only
district that the Assamese can call their own.” The Government realising the
gravity of the situation introduced the line system that designated the area in
each district that could be settled by the immigrant Bengali Muslim. However,
the fourth Sir. Sadullah Ministry-1944-45 de-reserved grazing reserves in Kamrup,
Darrang and Nowgong districts for settling East Bengali peasants, ostensibly for
increasing paddy production. Lord Wavell described the settlements as –
“Grow more Muslims, rather than grow more food.”
After the partition very few
Bengali Muslims migrated to East Pakistan from Assam and West Bengal. However
the migration of Bengali Hindus from East Pakistan to Assam, Tripura and West
Bengal was in lakhs. Very soon the pressures on land in East Pakistan led to
almost all the Bengali Muslims who had migrated from Assam, West Bengal and
Tripura to remigrate to these three states. In Assam, when there were no more
vacant lands to settle, the hardy Bengali Muslim peasants began to colonise, the
chars and chapories (sandbanks) on the Brahmaputra and its
tributaries. It was only the hardy Bengali Muslim peasant who could live on the chars
and chapories. During the annual floods they sit out the rising
waters in boats and resettle on firm ground when the chars and chapories
reappear after the water recedes. By 1960 most of the chapories in the
Brahmaputra in Goalpara, Kamrup, Darrang and Nowgong districts were occupied by
immigrant Muslim peasants. It was in 1991 that the objectives of the Bangladesh
government in this regard was reflected in an article in Holiday, October 1991,
titled Lebensraum for Bangladesh written by a leading intellectual Sadiq Khan.
To quote-“The question of lebensraum or living space for Bangladesh has not
yet been raised as a moot issue. All projections indicate that by the next
decade Bangladesh will face a serious crisis of lebensraum. No possible
performance of population planning, actual or hypothetical alters that
prediction. A natural overflow of population pressure is therefore very much on
the cards and will not be restrained by barbed wire or border patrol measures.
The natural trend of population overflow from Bangladesh is towards the sparsely
populated lands of the southeast in the Arakhans and the northeast of the seven
sisters side of the Indian subcontinent.”
In the first twenty years after
partition, it was the venality of the petty bureaucrats that helped the illegal
migrant both Hindu and Muslim from East Pakistan to get settled on land in
Assam. In West Bengal and Tripura, no attempt was made to prevent illegal
migration. It was the Director of the Intelligence Bureau, B.N. Mallick who first
pointed out the dangers of unrestricted illegal migration of Bengali Muslims
into Assam and West Bengal to the Government of India. The Government of India
set up a Pakistan Infiltration Post scheme in Assam and Task Forces in West
Bengal and Tripura to detect illegal migrants from East Pakistan. The scheme was
established in Assam and did some good work initially. In West Bengal and
Tripura, the scheme never took off. By the early seventies, the politicians
discovered that the illegal Muslim immigrants was an infallible vote bank The
early seventies was also the period when the concept of committed bureaucracy
became firmly established. In Assam, there had been considerable detection and
deportation of illegal Muslim and Hindu immigrants throughout the sixties. All
this gradually petered off as compliant bureaucrats humbly acquiesced with the
political leadership in the seventies. By the mid seventies, the political
leadership in Assam was proclaiming that there were no foreigners in Assam. In
West Bengal, the political leadership and their pliant bureaucrats were claiming
openly that there was no difference between the proletariat of Bangladesh and
West Bengal!
In
1971, when Bangladesh was liberated, Mrs. Gandhi committed a conscious blunder
when she agreed with the President of Bangladesh that he would not take back any
of the citizens of East Pakistan who had migrated to India before 25 March 1971,
the date of creation of the Government of Bangladesh in exile in India. At one
stroke, Mrs. Gandhi had accepted several lakhs of people of East Pakistan who
had illegally migrated to India and who had not been detected. This act was
clearly in violation of the Citizenship Act of India. The Government of India
were in a fix, when a foreigners agitation was started in Assam in 1979
demanding detection and deportation of Bengali Muslims and Hindus who had
migrated into Assam and had been taken on the electoral roll. This issue started
when the sitting member of the Mangaldoi constituency died and a by-election was
ordered. There were representations to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of
India by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the Ahom Jatiyatibadi Yuba
Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) that a large number of illegal migrants had settled
in Mangaldoi constituency and were likely to be included in the voters list.
After a preliminary inquiry, the CEC announced that the election in Mangaldoi
could be held only after the electoral rolls were revised. More than 35,000
applications were filed about illegal migrations in the constituency. At this
time the Janata government in Delhi was toppled by giving bait to Chaudhary
Charan Singh to become a lame duck Prime Minister. The Congress sitting in the
back seat ran the new government. The Muslim lobby persuaded the Congress to
pressurise the CEC not to revise the electoral rolls of the Mangaldoi
constituency. The CEC humbly recanted and said that the revision of electoral
rolls in the Mangaldoi constituency could not be done and the by-election would
be held on the 1976 electoral rolls. The reaction from Assam was electric.
Realising that the Centre was discriminating against Assam, the AASU and the
AJYCP formed the Gana Sangram Parishad and started the foreigners’ agitation.
This was an agitation, unique of its kind and on the lines of the civil
disobedience movement of 1942 and was to leave its indelible mark on the
Assamese people and the history of India. It culminateed in the brutal election
of 1983, that was forced on the Assamese people and which ended in a bloodbath
with more than 3000 people killed in police firings and ethnic clashes in the
Brahmaputra valley. In 1985 an accord was signed with the AASU and the Gana
Sangram Parishad, where the AASU leaders agreed to 1971 being made the cut off
year for regularising the citizenship of illegal migrants from the erstwhile
East Pakistan. The Government of India must have given a huge sigh of relief
when the AASU leaders agreed to this. The government promptly amended the
Citizenship Act inserting a clause of the Assam accord as the basis for making
1971 as the cut-off year for determining the citizenship of illegal immigrants
from East Pakistan. The blunder committed in 1971 was regularised in 1985. The
AASU leaders should never have agreed to 1971 being made the cut-off year. They
should have insisted that the people of East Pakistan who had illegally migrated
into India after 1951 could be given work permits and allowed to stay in India
but not allowed to become citizens. This would not have given them voting
rights. Also, the issue of further illegal migrants getting voting rights by
compliant bureaucrats at the instance of their political masters would have been
avoided as the option of work permits was there. The basic issue of the vote
bank could thus have been avoided.
Today
the illegal Muslim immigrant is clearly a vote bank of several political parties
both national and regional. There is also a Muslim lobby in India that
pressurises the Governments in power to see that illegal Muslim immigrants are
given citizenship. I give an example of this. In early 1998, as the Director
General of the Border Security Force. I attended a meeting in the Raj Bhavan
chaired by the Prime Minister. The subject of the meeting was the
enfranchisement of the descendents of Bengali Muslims who had immigrated after
25 March 1971. This was clearly illegal. The Prime Minister addressed the
meeting and stated that Muslim leaders had insisted that these descendents
should be enfranchised for the coming election else there would be communal
riots in Assam. I found the Chief Secretary Assam concurring with this and
finding that the Director Intelligence Bureau not saying anything, I spoke out
that there would be no communal riots in Assam on this issue as it was plainly
illegal. My vehement response led to a discussion and the Prime Minister finally
agreed that the descendents of post 1971 illegal immigrants from Bangladesh
could not be enfranchised. The bluff of the Muslim lobby had been called. There
were no communal riots on this decision.
The
Bangladesh government denies that there is illegal migration from their country
into India at every joint meeting between the two countries. When Bangladeshi
Muslims are detected and cases are registered, investigated and the accused
convicted, the government of India sends the details of the convicted Bangladesh
persons for consular access to the government of Bangladesh who in turn sit on
the cases for long periods and finally reply that the persons concerned are not
their citizens. This left no alternative for our government but to forcibly push
these convicted Bangladesh citizens across the border. The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR)
are alive to this and more often than not they detect the persons pushed across
and force them at gunpoint back into India. Incidentally there is also a regular
traffic of Bangladesh citizens being smuggled into Pakistan by organised gangs.
The touts engaged for this, bribe the border guards and slip into West Bengal
with their human cargo. They are taken by train to the Rajasthan, Punjab and
Jammu borders. Near the border, the touts point out the Border Security Force (BSF)
border out post (BOP) and tell their wards to surrender to the post saying that
they have come from Pakistan. The policy at that time was that if any
Bangladeshi was seen near the border, it was to be presumed that they had come
in from Pakistan and they should be pushed back. Most of the Bangladesh persons,
pushed back would be caught by the Pakistan Rangers and again pushed into India.
The hapless Bangladesh nationals were pushed back and forth like shuttlecocks. I
had stopped this procedure when I took over as the Director General of the BSF
in December 1998. All Bangladesh nationals detected near the Pakistan borders,
whether they had come in from Pakistan or were brought by touts to be sent into
Pakistan were escorted by the BSF to the Bangladesh border and pushed into
Bangladesh. These hapless individuals when detected by the BDR would be
mercilessly pushed into India. At one meeting with our counterparts, when I was
told ritually that there was no illegal migration from Bangladesh into India, I
narrated this story. I also added that very often the Pakistan Inter Services
Intelligence (ISI) across the Jammu border kept a handful of Bangladesh
immigrants in their border posts to be used as scouts when pushing in
terrorists. The poor Bangladesh nationals were sent ahead of their infiltrating
parties. The BSF ambushes would open fire at the slightest noise ahead of them.
The hapless Bangladesh nationals would be killed, while the infiltrating group
behind would safely retreat to their launching pads. There was a prolonged
silence after my narration. I completed the coup de grace by saying that
there was a human side to the whole business of illegal immigration and the
Bangladesh government should look into all these aspects before denying that
there was no illegal migration at all.
To
ensure that their vote bank was not disturbed, the party in power at the centre
enacted the Illegal Migrants Determination by Tribunal Act (IMDT) in 1983 to be
operational only in Assam, keeping the Foreigners Act in abeyance in the state.
This was an illegal and unconstitutional Act. There cannot be two acts for the
same offence. The Foreigners Act would be applicable for detection of foreigners
all over India except in Assam, where it would be kept in abeyance and a new act
the IMDT act would apply. To add insult to injury, in the IMDT act, the onus of
proving that the accused was an Indian or a foreigner was on the prosecution! In
the Foreigners Act it was for the suspect to prove that he was an Indian. It was
only in 2005 after 22 years of an illegal and unconstitutional act being on the
statute books that the Supreme Court repealed the act. The damage done during
the intervening period was immense as can be seen from the figures in the two
tables below.
Muslims as a percentage of population in
Assam, West Bengal and Bihar.4
1991 2001
Dhubri 70.4 74.3
Goalpara 50.2 53.6
Hailakandi 54.8 57.6
Karimganj 49.2 52,3
Cachar 34.5 30.1
Barpeta 56.1 59.4
Nowgong 47.2 51.0
Morigaon 46.0 47.6
Darrang 32.0 35.6
South 24 Parganas 29.4 33.2
North 24 Parganas 24.2 24.2
Nadia 24.9 25.0
Murshidabad 61.4 63.7
Malda 47.5 49.7
Calcutta 17.7 20.3
Dinajpur 38.9 38.4
Jalpaiguri 10.0 10.8
Cooch Bihar 23.4 24.2
Kishanganj 65.8 67.6
Araria 40.5 41.2
Purnea 34.5 36.7
Katihar 39.9 42.5
Percentage Growth of Muslim
Population in Assam and
West Bengal-1991-20015
Muslims Non Muslims
Dhubri
29.5
7.1
Goalpara
31.7
14.4
Hailakandi
27.2
13.3
Karimganj
29.4
14.5
Cachar
24.6
16.0
Barpeta
25.8
10.0
Nowgong
32.1
11.3
Morigaon
27.2
16.3
Darrang
28.9
9.8
South
24 Parganas
34.2
11.5
North 24 Parganas
23.0
22.6
Nadia
21.9
18.8
Murshidabad
28.4
16.4
Malda
30.7
19.4
Calcutta
19.0
0.7
Dinajpur
31.9
22.7
Jalpaiguri
31.3
20.4
Cooch
Bihar
18.5
12.8
The figures in the first table
reveal that even by 1991 the Bengali Muslim had become a majority in several
districts of Assam and Bengal The figures of the second table clearly reveals
that illegal migration of the Bengali Muslim from Bangladesh is still
continuing.
Bangladesh, a Sanctuary for Insurgent Groups of the Northeast States
East Pakistan gave sanctuary to
the Federal Government of Nagaland (FGN) in 1955. Later they also gave sanctuary
to the Mizo National Front in 1966. In both these instances it was the Inter
Services Intelligence of the Pakistan Army who organised the assistance to the
two insurgent groups and it was the Pakistan Army who trained the cadres of the
two groups in weapons and guerilla warfare. In 1971 when Bangladesh was
liberated, the MNF managed to escape into the Arakhan area of Burma. The Naga
underground leaders were captured by the India Army in Dacca. The Bangladesh
President Sheikh Mujibur Rehman did not give sanctuary to the FGN and the MNF.
After his assassination in 1975, the Army Generals who took over reversed his
policy and Islamised the country. They also allowed the MNF to return and they
soon set up camps again in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), this time with the
assistance of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the
Bangladesh equivalent of the ISI.
It was in 1990 that the
Bangladesh government was involved in aiding and abetting the insurgent groups
of the Northeast. The first group to seek the help of Bangladesh was the United
Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). The ULFA, The National Socialist Council of
Nagaland (NSCN-IM) and the Peoples Liberation Army of Manipur (PLA) were all
training their cadres with the Kachin Liberation Army of Burma. Their leader,
Bransen withdrew support to the three groups in 1990-91. Anticipating this, the
ULFA leaders sent a group of ten cadres to Bangladesh in 1990. They were taken
to the Pakistan embassy and there the ISI welcomed them and with the DGFI’s
help got them Bangladesh passports and took them to Peshawar, where they were
trained by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami. Esconced in safe houses given
to them by the DGFI in Dacca, the ULFA soon got the NSCN and the PLA to join
them. After this there was no looking back. Soon the leaders of the ULFA, the
NSCN (IM) and the PLA were having discussions with the officers of the ISI and
the DGFI in Cox’s Bazaar about purchasing arms from the clandestine arms
bazaar of Thailand, getting them by coastal steamers, landing them at Cox’s
Bazaar and then taking the arms overland into Nagaland and Assam through Burma
and Manipur. The first consignment of AK rifles and RPD 7.62 light machine guns
were collected by the ULFA leaders at Cox’s Bazaar in the early winter of 1992
and carried overland on foot by NSCN (IM) cadres. While trekking down ten of
their cadres deserted and surrendered at Parva located at the southern tip of
Mizoram to the BSF who took them to Massimpur. Their interrogation revealed for
the first time the developments of 1990 to 1992 that finally culminated in the
first consignment of arms. This was landed at Cox’s Bazaar, brought overland
to Bandarban in the CHT, where the NSCN (IM) established a transit camp and
taken by a group of 240 cadres who had marched from their camp at Benin in
Tamenglong district in Manipur south through Churachandpur district into Burma,
followed the Tiddim road, turned west and skirting Parva, the southern tip of
Mizoram and the trijunction of Mizoram, Burma and Bangladesh reached Bandarban.
The group marched back by the same route. This was probably the largest
consignment of weapons that the NSCN (IM) procured, since their formation. The
whole transaction was overseen by the DGFI. Subsequently the National Democratic
Front of Boroland (NDFB) joined the ULFA and the NSCN (IM) in Bangladesh. The
group brought at least two more consignments of arms by the same route in 1993
and 1994. The weapons brought were AK rifles, RPD 7.62 light machine guns, RPG-7
rocket launchers and Chinese grenades. The ULFA and the NDFB transported their
share of weapons from the Benin camp of the NSCN (IM) by road to Assam and then
to their camps in Bhutan. In 1995, the army after liaison with the Burmese Army
laid a joint ambush when a combined group of the ULFA, NSCN (IM) and NDFB were
returning from Bandarban after collecting arms of probably the fourth
consignment obtained through the ISI and the DGFI. All three groups suffered
casualties, a large number of weapons were seized and a number of cadres
arrested. After this mishap, the three groups changed the route and brought the
weapons from Bandarban, marching north skirting Kagrachari and slipping into
Mizoram between Amchurimukh and Tuipuibari BOPs of the BSF, then north along the
Lankhai valley, traversing Mizoram, crossing into Churachandpur district of
Manipur at Tipaimukh and then north to Benin in Tamenglong district. Later the
NSCN (IM) established a camp in Aizawl, Mizoram and further consignments were
received near Amchurimukh on the Aizawl-Phuldengsi road and taken in vehicles
via Silchar, Jiribam and Tamenglong to Benin.
A number of small insurgent
groups were also given sanctuary by the DGFI in the CHT and in the hills to the
north of Tripura. These include the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT),
and the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF). Smaller groups like the Dima Halem Daoga
(DHD) of the North Cachar Hills and the United Peoples Democratic Solidarity (UPDS)
of the Karbi Anglong district were given shelter in the CHT. Two groups from
Mehgalaya, the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) and the Achik
National Volunteer Council were allowed to have safe houses in Sylhet district
by the DGFI. Most of these small insurgent groups had linkages with the NSCN
(IM) and weapons and training was given by their cadres.
The most interesting part of this
whole transaction was the attitude of the Bangladesh government when given
specific locations of these insurgent camps during coordination meetings. They
would flatly deny that there were any such camps. The Intelligence agencies, the
state governments concerned and the BSF had detailed information of the location
of the camps from insurgents who had been trained there and captured when they
returned to India. A few weeks later when insurgents in these camps were
captured they would tell us during interrogation that the local BDR officers had
come to their camps and asked them to slightly shift their camps. The answer was
not to take it up with Bangladesh, but to reinforce our borders and seal them
effectively. And this is were the government has been dragging its feet.
The Terrorist threat and the Al Qaeda Connection
The Pakistan ISI has always used
Bangladesh as a route for infiltrating and exfiltrating insurgents moving in and
out of Kashmir. Cadres of the main insurgent groups operating in Kashmir have
always used this route. Masood Azhar, the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam’s theoretician
travelled to Kashmir via Bangladesh to organnise the Harkat-ulAnsar there. He
was arrested by the army near Kapran a town in south Kashmir and later released
in exchange for the passengers of the Indian Airlines plane hijacked in 2000. In
August 1999, the Assam Police arrested four persons on suspicion from Guwahati.
On interrogation they confessed that they were Muhammad Faisullah Hussaini of
Hyderabad, Sind, Pakistan, Muhammad Javed Wakhar of Karachi, Maulana Hafiz
Wakhar of Kupwara, Kashmir, and Qari Salim Muhammad of Muzaffarnagar, U.P. They
had arrived in Dacca via Karachi and met ISI officials there and crossed over
into India through the Karimganj border. They had kept a consignment of
explosives in a mosque in Bangladesh for collection later to be used for bombing
targets in India. This consignment was brought in by a clever operation using a
decoy. The recovery consisted of 34 kilograms of RDX, 9 timer devices and 30
detonators. After further interrogation, the group revealed that that the
Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HUJI), Bangladesh had recruited and sent a number of
young immigrant Muslims from Assam to Pakistan via Bangladesh. Based on this
information, the Assam Police was able to arrest a number of young Bengali
Muslims who had been trained in Pakistan. They also arrested Muhammad
Muslimudeen, the Chief Organiser of the HUJI Bangladesh in India. They found
that the Naib Amir of the HUJI in India, Muhammad Fakhruddin was an immigrant
Bengali Muslim form Goalpara in Assam and was now based in Pakistan.6
The DGFI had nurtured and backed
several fundamentalist groups in the immigrant Bengali Muslim belts in Assam.
These are the Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA), Muslim United
Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA), Islamic Liberation Army of Assam, United
Muslim Liberation Front of Assam (UMFLA), Muslim Volunteer Force (MVF) and the
Adam Sena. These organisations are in the vanguard of the movement for
lebensraum for Bangladesh. The next insurgency in Assam will be by these Muslim
organisations for the merger of Assam with Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is clearly emerging as
a new hub of pro-jehadi bin Laden terrorism. The situation in Bangladesh is
similar to the one in Indonesia before the Bali bombings. The publication on 10
December 2003 of a report on Bangladesh by the Canadian Intelligence Security
Service states that the Government of Bangladesh was not doing enough to prevent
the country for becoming a haven for Islamic terrorists. According to this
report in February 2003 Islamic militants attacked a cultural concert in a
northern Bangladesh town and then police recovered bomb making materials from
radicals who claimed to be members of the Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen (JUM) and the
Shahadat-al-Hikma (SAH). In 1998 a group called the Bangladesh Jihad came to
notice, when one of its members signed the fatwa issued by bin Laden calling for
a jihad against the United States and Israel. The annual report of the patterns
of global terrorism of the US State Department in 2002 contained a report of the
activities of the Bangladesh HUJI that had become a member of bin Laden’s
International Islamic Front. HUJI Bangladesh has an estimated strength of 15,000
headed by Shaukat Osman @ Sheikh Farid of Chittagong. They refer to themselves
as the Bangladesh Taliban.
Bangladesh has undergone a
fundamental political and social transformation over the past three decades. A
new brand of nationalism with an Islamic flavour has steadily replaced secular
Bengali nationalism. Local journalists and non-government organisations have
located several training camps in the country mainly in the lawless south-east
bordering Myanmar.8 Sheikh Mujibur
Rehman had quietly started the process of Islamisation. Gen. Ziaur Rehman,
though himself a freedom fighter and had taken refuge in India in
1971,accelerated the process. He lifted the ban on the fundamentalist and
communal parties and de-secularised the Constitution in 1977 under pressure from
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries. Gen. Ershad declared
Islam as the state religion in 1988. These two decisions reactivated the
Jamiat-e-Islami (JEI) and other communal forces in the country. The boosting of
political Islam was boosted by a steady flow of petro dollars from Saudi Arabia
and other Middle East countries. Leading to the mushrooming of mosques and
madrassas in every nook and corner of the country.9
Beginning in 1984, the JEI in
coordination with its Pakistani counterpart and the ISI recruited more than
5,000 Madrassa alumni as mujahideen and sent them in batches to Pakistan and
Afghanistan to participate in the jihad against the Soviets. When they returned,
they formed the vanguard of Islamic militancy in Bangladesh. They organised a
host of terrorist groups in the country with the aim of establishing a
Talibanised state in Bangladesh. This has been substantiated by an interview by
the CNN with John Walker Lindh, the US Taliban fighter, captured by the US
forces in 2001 in Afghanistan. He mentioned that the Al Qaeda brigades to whom
he belonged were divided into Arabic, Pashtun and Bengali groups. The Bengali
groups consisted mostly of Rohingyas, but also included Bangladeshi Muslims.
It is therefore not correct to
say that Islamic fundamentalism was given a fillip by Begum Khaleda Zia after
she came to power in 2001. The process initiated in 1977 gradually gained
momentum. During the Prime Ministership of Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who was secular
and well disposed to India, the process did not lose momentum. Regrettably her
writ seldom ran beyond the four walls of her office. It was however during
Khaleda Zia’s reign, that the fundamentalist parties received open support
from the party in power. The JEI and the Islamic Oikya Jote (IOJ) are her
coalition partners in government.
The HUJI Bangladesh was formed in
1992-with ideological guidance and financial support from Osama bin Laden. Other
terrorist groups that surfaced during this period are the Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen (JUM),
Shahadat al Hokum (SAH) and the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB). An
umbrella group called the Bangladesh Islamic Manch was set up in 2002 with
representation from the MULTA of Assam and the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation
(RSO) based in Ukhia near Cox’s Bazaar. All these terrorist organisations drew
its cadres from the 1, 462, 500 strong alumni of the 6,500 Madrassas run by the
JEI. The rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the subsequent post 9/11
invasion of Afghanistan by the US have further fuelled Islamic militancy. The
JEI, IOJ and the Khilafat Andolan declared the US as an enemy of Islam. A 2000
survey by the US based Pew research centre concluded that 58% of Bangladeshi
Muslims believed that suicide bombings were justified in Islam. The countrywide
Hindu cleansing operations in 2001 jointly conducted by the BNP and the JEI
workers subjected the minority Hindu community to a wave of centrally planned
and directed murder, loot, extortion, arson and gang rape that triggered a
massive11 exodus of Hindus
to India in 2004
In
1941, the census of the region that is now Bangladesh showed a Hindu population
of 11.8 million, while some 5,88,000 were Buddhists and Christians. In 1991, the
figure for Hindus is 12.5 million. By normal standards of growth the Hindus
should have been 32.5 million. A comparative study of the census data shows that
during this period, while the Muslims registered a 219.5% increase, the Hindu
community increased by a mere 4.5%. There has obviously been a massive migration
of Hindus to India.
Since
1992, Islamic terrorist organisations have mushroomed in the country. Currently
in different phases of development, they operate under different names, but
their common goal is to establish a Talibanised trans-national Islamic state
comprising Bangladesh, Assam, Tripura, Muslim majority districts of West Bengal
and the Rohingya Muslim inhabited areas of the Arakhan Hills. Inclusion of the
JEI in the Khaleda Zia government led to infiltration of the administration,
Police and the Armed Forces by the Islamists. Organised in the late seventies by
the JEI with state support, the Rohingya Solidarity organisation (RSO) provides
arms training to Arakhanese Muslim youth in camps in Ukhia, near Cox’s Bazaar.
Lately, international media have reported the presence of Al Qaeda fugitives
from Afghanistan in these camps. HUJI cadres participated in the post 2001
election Hindu cleansing operations and attacks on Awami League cadres.
Large-scale desecration of temples and mass rape of Hindu women occurred.
The
JUM first emerged in 2003. Since then police have arrested JUM cadres with
incriminating documents arms ammunition and bomb making materials in Dinajpur,
Bogra, Chapai, Nababganj and Jopypurhat districts. In one case a small case of
enriched uranium was seized at the Indo-Bangladesh border from JUM cadres.
The
SAH was formed on 8 February 2003 in Rajshahi. It was reportedly funded by the
Pakistan based Dawood Ibrahim. The SAH convenor Kowser Hussain Siddique claimed
that it was a political party with 10,000 commandos and 25,000 fighters working
for Islamic revolution in the country. According to him, Moudood Ahmed, Minister
for Law and Justice had helped the SAH.
The
JMJB was founded in Dacca in 1998. With an estimated 10,000 strong cadre it has
extended its terror network to fifty of the country’s sixty-four districts. It
operates openly supported by the police. Siddique Rehman is the operation
commander and Abdur Rehman the Amir of the JMJB. The Hizbul Tauhid (HT) is
active in Barisal district. It is engaged in propagation of Islamic revolution
focused on the Koran and Shariat.
Three years after the
unprecedented mayhem under the BNP-JEI dispensation, atrocities against the
religious and ethnic minorities have continued unabated. Besides countless cases
of dacoity, 226 serious cases of minority bashing were reported in the first
half of 2004. These included murder (20), rape (22), kidnapping (17) and
forcible occupation of houses and other immovable property (167). The figures
are given as an indication. The incidents of this nature have only intensified
since then. In the past five years 56 people have been killed in bomb attacks on
the Udichi musical concert, Bengali New Year’s day in Dacca, Awami district
office in Narayanganj, Awami League rallies at Sonamganj, Sylhet and Dacca,
cinema halls in Mymensingh and Sylhet, a church at Gopalganj, and the revered
Sufi shrine of Shah Jalal at Sylhet. None of the cases have been properly
investigated, obviously under government directions. A good number of JUM, SAH
and JMJB cadres were arrested with clinching evidence of possession of firearms,
but were all discharged by the courts. The three major incidents of this nature
were the grenade attack on Sheikh Hasina’s rally, where 22 people were killed,
the attack where the British High Commissioner was injured and the attack when
the former Finance Minister of the Awami League was killed.
The grenades used in the attack
on the Awami League meeting in which S.A.M.S.Kibria, a former Finance Minister
was killed and in the attack on a similar rally in Dacca in which Sheikh Hasina
narrowly escaped were of the ARGES-84 MODEL used by Taliban fighters against US
forces in Afghanistan and now manufactured only in Pakistan. The link between
the ISI and the DGFI is clearly revealed from this.
1. 7.62 mm T-56-I-SMG
690.
2. 7.62 MMt-56-smg 600
3. 40 MM Rocket Launcher
T-69 150
4. 40 mm Rockets. 850.
5. 9 mm Semi Automatic
Sniper Rifle 400
8. Grenade Launcher 2000
9. T-82 Hand Grenade
25,020
10. 7.62 mm cartridges
7,39,680
11. 7.62 Pistol
ammunition 4,00.000
There is no further information
for whom these arms were intended, though the suspicion is on the ULFA.14
The reaction of the Bangladesh government to such attacks and seizures is
farcical. An inquiry was conducted by a judge of the Bangladesh high court on
the grenade attack. He concluded that the attack was engineered by a
neighbouring country, meaning India! In the case of the JMJB and the JUM, the
government denied their existence for several months and then finally banned
them!
In the background of all these
activities of a cocoon of terror in Bangladesh and the condemnation of a top US
official, Admiral William Fallon, head of the US military’s Pacific Command on
an official visit to Dacca that the US military had enough evidence that
Bangladesh was home to numerous terrorist groups and was a base for terrorist
attacks abroad, the government of India chose to stop construction of the border
fencing in Tripura on the zero line because the Bangladesh government objected
to this. The fencing is normally constructed 100 to 150 metres behind the zero
line. In many parts of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura, villages exist right upto
the zero line. In such places there is no choice but to construct the fencing
right on the zero line. Actually, the villages or towns must be re-sited 100
metres behind and the fencing constructed there. Incidentally, over 198
kilometres of the international border in Jammu, the BSF has constructed fencing
and a bund right on the zero line. There was a lot of firing and the BSF
suffered casualties. The same provision of constructing a fence 100 metres
behind the zero line exists on the Indo Pak border too. If we could do this on
the Jammu border why have we given in to the Bangladesh government?
The following steps should be
undertaken with regard to Bangladesh. All illegal immigrants from Bangladesh,
post 25 March 1971, must be identified and their names deleted from the
electoral roll. They can be given work permits, pending repatriation to
Bangladesh. It is their votes that lead political parties to enfranchise them.
The work of fencing the border should be restarted immediately. The government
should either re-site the villages and towns located upto the zero line and
construct the fencing100 metres behind the zero line or construct the fencing
right on the zero line as the BSF has done on the Jammu border. All the
commodities being smuggled into Bangladesh can be exported with preferable
duties so that the Bangladesh government is economically benefited. We may do
everything possible to encourage trade with Bangladesh, but the noxious racket
in smuggling should be killed once and for all.
Prognosis
The situation in Bangladesh will
steadily deteriorate. The Islamists have infiltrated the police and the civil
services. The secular group among the Muslims are a hopeless minority. The
conflict within Islam between the Sufis and the Wahabis has pervaded Bangladesh
too, with the Tabliqi Jamaat (TJ), the JUI. and HUJI dictating the brand of
Islam that should prevail in the country. If not checked in time Bangladesh may
well turn into a rague state.
The future scenario in West
Bengal, Assam and Tripura and the rest of the Northeast with respect to
Bangladesh is grim. As each election passes by in Assam, the threat of political
domination by the immigrant Bengali Muslim looms larger. It is certain that
severe communal rioting will occur along the faultlines between the Assamese and
the Bengali Muslims. The infamous election of 1983 was a forerunner for this
prognosis. The sequel to this rioting will be the eruption of a Bengali Muslim
insurrection by Islamist groups like the MULTA, MULFA, HUJI and other
fundamentalists. When such an insurgency breaks out it will be difficult for the
police or the Armed Forces to operate because it will be an insurgency to get a
homeland for the Bengali Muslims in the Northeast. The Bengali Muslim population
will give total support and Bangladesh will aid the insurgents with the ordnance
required. There will be no hearts and minds to win. If we do succeed in securing
an area, it will be difficult to hold it, as the population will be totally
against us.
References
1.
The Daily Star. Dacca. August 18, 2005.
2.
The Internal Political Dynamics of Bangladesh. I.P.Khosla.Agni-Forum
for Strategic Studies Vol.-7
No.-2
3.
The Question of lebensraum. Holiday. Dacca. 18 October 1991
4.
The Silent Demographic Invasion. Arun Shourie. Indian Express 8,9
October 2004.
5.
Ibid.
6.
ISI Activities in Assam. Statement laid on the table of the Assam
Legislative Assembly, item-12, dated
6 April 2000 by the Chief Minister of
Assam.
7.
Bangladesh and Jihadi Terrorism an Update. B.Raman. Agni. Vol-7. No. 2.
September-December
2003.
8.
Bangladesh Terror, the Growing Spectre of Radical Islam, Bibuti Bhuahan
Nandy. Statesman 7
September 2004.
9. Ibid.
10.
Transcript of John Walker Lindh interview. CNN. July 4 2002.
11.
Bangladesh Terror, the growing spectre of growing Islam. Bhibuti Bhushan
Nandy. Statesman, 8
September 2004
12.
Terrorist Menace. Bhibuti Bhushan Nandy. Statesman, 15 July 2004.
13.
A’ moderate’ Bombing. Jeremy Seabrook. Statesman-20 August
2005.
14.
Demonised Other. Imtiaz Ahmed. Statesman. March-22,2005
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