Title: Mahanta presents
proof of ISI mischief
Author:
Publication: The Hindu
Date: April 7, 2000
The Assam Assembly today
was told in detail the nature and extent of ISI activities in the State
by the Chief Minister, Mr. Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.
The 16- page statement,
first of its kind made by the State Government, included a photocopy of
the ULFA "commander-in-chief", Mr. Paresh Baruah's fake Bangladesh passport,
issued in the name of Kamaruddin Zaman Khan, obtained with the help of
an official of the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka.
There was another photocopy
of a Urdu letter written by Mr. Fasiullah Hussaini, a Pakistani spy arrested
here last August, and addressed to Mr. Ashraf Jahangir Qazi, Pakistan High
Commissioner in Delhi, requesting him to obtain Rs. 3 lakhs from the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
chief for defending his (Fasiullah's) case.
Mr. Mahanta said the
State police had collected sufficient evidence to prove that the ISI was
actively fomenting violence and terrorism. The Pakistani espionage and
subversion agency had a six-fold objective: promoting indiscriminate violence
in the State by providing support to local militant outfits; creating new
militant outfits for instigating violence between ethnic and religious
groups; supplying sophisticated arms and explosives to various terrorist
groups; causing damage to oil pipelines and other vital installations and
communication lines; promoting fundamentalism and militancy among local
Muslim youth by preaching 'jehad'; and carrying on an inflammatory propaganda
to heighten communal tension between Hindus and Muslims.
The Chief Minister named
11 Muslim militant outfits which are active in Assam: the Muslim United
Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA), the Muslim Liberation Tigers of Assam
(MULTA), the Islamic Liberation Army of Assam (ILAA), the United Muslim
Liberation Front of Assam (UMLFA), the United Reformation Protest of Assam
(URPA), the People's United Liberation Front (PULF), the Muslim Volunteer
Force (MVF), the Adam Sena, the Islamic Sevak Sangha (ISS), the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
and the Harkat-ul-jehad.
During the last two years,
the police had arrested 101 MULTA activists and 60 persons belonging to
other outfits.
Some top militants arrested
were found to have been involved in activities of madrassas and mosques.
In order to ensure that these religious institutions were not maligned
wholesale, only Muslim police officers were deputed for inquiry there.
The Chief Minister provided
thumbnail sketches of the activities of 17 arrested Muslim militants along
with their photographs and gave details of their stay in Bangladesh and
Pakistan and the type and quantity of explosives brought by them.
The police also seized
a number of audio cassettes of "highly linflammatory and communally sensitive"
speeches by Maulana Masood Azhar circulating in different parts of the
State, Mr. Mahanta told the House.
