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Bangladesh turning out as worse enemy

Bangladesh turning out as worse enemy

Author: M.V.Kamath
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: September 30, 2004
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/300904-features.html

It is bad enough to have a problem with Pakistan over Jammu & Kashmir, or with Nepal over Maoist rebels. Pakistan has been worrying India since 1947 and is apparently in no mood to relax. General Musharraf is sounding harsher by the day. Perhaps he should be told that if he continues on these lines India may given up further talks with Islamabad and reserve the right to bomb terrorist training camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir territory. Such a warning needs to be given considering that terrorist activities have been increasing since May and civilians are getting killed. There is need to tell Pakistan that it cannot get away literally with murder. But Bangladesh is turning out as a worse enemy.

One would have thought that after all that India had done to help Bangladeshis liberate themselves from Pakistani tyranny they would show signs of gratitude. Of that there are none. There never were. After the murder of Sheikh Mujib and some members of his family, Bangladehis have become increasingly fundamentalist. General Zia-ur-Rehman lifted the ban on the communal and fundamentalist parties and desecularised the Constitution in 1977; since then the liberal elements have been given no respite. To make matters worse, General H. M. Ershad declared Islam as the state religion of Bangladesh in 1988 after which Islamic fundamentalism received an additional boost. It is creating havoc in Bangladesh and problems for India.

To say that Pakistan's ISI has been very active in its former eastern province is to say the obvious. It has been supported by Saudi Arabia and some other Islamic countries resulting in the ascension of the Jamaat-e- Islami and some other outfits like the Jammatul- Mujahideen, Sahadat al Hikma and the JMJB, which are being liberally financed by petro-dollars.

India should long ago have raised the matter with the rulers in Riyadh; that it has apparently failed to do. The net result is the setting up in Bangladesh some 6,500 quomi madrassahs which have become breeding ground for terrorists. According to Bibhuti Bhushan Nandy, former Additional Secretary of Research and Analysis wing (RAW), beginning in 1984 the Jammat-e-Islami recruited no fewer than 5,000 madrassah alumni (from a total of about 1,462,500) to participate in the jehad against Soviet presence in Afghanistan.

Some of these jehadists are apparently active along the Pakistan-India border as well. What is disturbing is the active anti-Hindu sentiments that have been encouraged in Bangladesh. The backlash to the demolition of the Babri masjid in Bangladesh is well known. The demolition triggered the worst ever pogrom on the minority Hindu community.

Loot, arson, rape and destruction and desecration of Hindu temples and shrines became common with the tacit encouragement, of the government. And everyone knows what happened to the Bengali writer Taslima Nasrin who depicted the post-Babri atrocities in her seminal work Lajja. Fatwas pronouncing death sentence on her were issued by mullahs in their anger and poor Taslima had to leave her country for her safety. The persistence of anti-Hindu sentiments continues.

New Delhi had to lodge a strong protest with Dhaka over certain vicious anti-India remarks made by Bangladesh Foreign Minister Morshed Khan. Delhi was upset to hear that Bangladeshi government circles linked India with a murderous attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka on 21 August. In Delhi, Foreign Secretary Shayam Saran had to call Bangladesh High Commissioner on 10 September to issue him a verbal `demarche' expressing India's displeasure.

It is common knowledge especially in Assam that the leaders of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) have been given shelter in Dhaka and Bangladesh is also giving support to training camps of north east insurgents along its borders with India. Bangladesh is also giving support to training camps of north east insurgents along its borders with India.

Bangladesh refuses to accept this charge and early in September Foreign Minister Morshed Khan rubbished New Delhi's concerns in this regard saying that they could have a "negative impact" on bilateral ties.

Norshed Khan went further to say that Dhaka could end India's three billion dollar trade with Bangladesh if India persisted with its charges. It is not that Bangladesh is unaware of what is going on.

Almost six months ago ten truck loads of arms intended for insurgent groups in the North east had been seized by Bangladeshi authorities but all that Dhaka did was to order the arrest of the truck drivers ad cleaners. According to intelligence sources the captured arms were worth more than $ 7.5 millions, enough to arm half a brigade. The arms had been seized in Chittagong on the night of 2 April.

The matter is being hushed up even though Bangladesh authorities had promised India that it will share whatever "substantive information" has been gathered as to the source of the arms and the international nexus between insurgents and alien governments. According to one source, the payment for the arms had been arranged by a "foreign country" which has interests in destabilising India.

Indeed, on August 19, addressing a press conference in Guwahati, Assam Chief Minister Tarum Gogoi said that the recent upsurge of violent attacks by the ULFA clearly indicated that the outfit is working at the behest of certain foreign agencies to subvert India from within. As he put it: "The governments of these countries may not be directly involved, but the fact that these neighboring countries are used as safe havens by the ULFA is tantamount to abetting terrorism in the region". Since then India has given Bangladesh a fresh list of insurgent training camps being operated there.

India wants Bangladesh also to hand over ULFA chief Parish Barua. During talks with Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) last month, India's Border Security Force had submitted a list of 195 camps run from Bangladeshi territory. That list has since been updated. It should not be difficult for India to invade Bangladesh and smash these camps but Delhi is unwilling to take this extreme steps for fear of international repercussions.

And so just as Pakistan in the west is using India's recalcitrance to take firm action, so is Bangladesh in the East and the net sufferer is India. It is not that western nations are unaware of what is going on in Bangladesh.

In a recent interview to Outlook (13 September) the CIA's Directorate of Operations J. Cofer Black said that Bangladesh's situation was of great interest to the United States. He told his interviewer: "The United States is opposed to all terrorists. We approach terrorism as a global issue. On my last trip (to Delhi) I got some good insights from the Indian team on what is going on in Bangladesh.

We're very mindful ... We are looking at Bangladesh more closely. I'm personally interested in having an accurate picture. We plan to look into and if correct confirm the Indian view. We need to determine exactly the threat of terrorists not only to Bangladesh but also the potential utilisation of Bangladesh as a platform toproject terrorism internationally". But these are so many words. The United States has done practically nothing to warn Dhaka.

Only recently The Statesman (8 September) published an article by Bibhuti Bhushan Nandy, a former RAW official which said: "The countrywide post-election Hindu cleansing operations in 2001 jointly conducted by the BNP and Jamaat workers subjected the minority Hindu community to a wave of centrally planned and directed murder, loot, extortion, arson and gang rape that triggered a massive exodus of Hindus to India. Later, operating at the micro level, the fundamentalists, notably guerillas of the Jammat-e-Islami affiliate Islamic Chhatra Shibir, selectively killed a number of leading Hindus like college principal, school teachers, priests and Buddhist monks to sustain and exacerbate the sense of insecurity among the minorities".

In March this year, 11 members of a Hindu family at Sadhanpur Village in Chittagong district were burnt to death by hired criminals. None of these stories get reported in the Indian media.

According to B. B. Nandy, "thanks to the inability and unwillingness of the police, none of the cases of terrorist attacks have been resolved. Instead of seriously investigating the horrendous crimes, the government has used them with cynical persistence to harras and persecute opposition leaders and secular intellectuals who had raised their voice against he atrocities on the minorities".

India has to act and act sharply and decisively. Dhaka must come to known that India will not tolerate persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh. At the same time India must identity Bangladehi Muslims now working in their thousands and millions and pack them off to where they came from.

According to Nandy "as a result of unrestrained illegal immigration, 20 million aliens (15 per cent of the Bangladesh population) have settled down in the border districts of West Bengal and other north eastern states, radically changing the demographic structure and communal complexion of the whole area". This is totally impermissible.

These people have to be returned to their homeland lest they create problems in northeast in the years to come. For every threat that the Bangladesh Foreign Minister makes, India must respond with concrete action. India, especially the country's northeastern states, cannot afford to give shelter to Muslim Bangladeshis.

The situation is such that Bangladeshi Muslims have spread all over the country and are especially to be found in Kolkata, Bihar, Delhi ad even Mumbai. Quick and swift action has to be taken against them, not only for protecting local labour interests but on a larger plane, protecting India's national security. There has been enough complacency so far and the time for action has come.
 


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