Author:
Publication: Indian Currents
Date: May 2, 2004
Seizure of an enormous quantity
of sophisticated arms at the Chittagong port in Bangladesh is most
sensational and gravely portentous. The cache could be worth around a thousand
crore and a convoy of lorries was lined up to transport it. The arms and
ammunition seized included submachine guns, automatic carbines, Tommy
automatic rifles, rocket launchers, Ugo rifles, hand grenades, and
magazines of SGMT, pistol and rifle. The quantity is big enough to
equip a brigade. Weeks after the seizure the Bangladesh government
is silent as to who orgainsed the shipment, who paid for the arms and for
whom it was meant. Available information are accurate and strong enough
to suspect some elements in the ruling BNP government of Bangladesh. Two
ships used for transhipment of the arms consignment belonged to the shipping
company owned by the BNP MP Salauddin Qadir Choudhury. The company is believed
to have had picked up the consignment from a sea-port in Malaysia. It was
being unloaded in a jetty, in a highly protected area. Smoothness and the
blatant openness of the operations indicate that arms transportation through
this port has been a routine and regular feature. This consignment got
exposed possibly owing to some lack of proper communications among the
people involved. Information were available with the Indian agencies
that Cox's Bazar, Teknaf and Chittagong region had a flourishing illegal
Arms Bazar and Drug Racket. Bangladesh has been in a perpetual denial
mode. It has been persistently refusing to accept the existence of
194 training camps being run by the fugitive North East Indian insurgent
elements. Photographic evidence of these camps mostly in Sylhet and Chittagong
Hill Tracts is still being ignored by the BNP government. In specific terms,
Assam based ULFA is running 27 camps and two Tripura based militant groups
had set up 51 such camps. Training and transit camps are also located in
Comilla, Maulavibazar, Hobiganj, Jamalpur, Sherpur, Mymensing and
Rajshahi districts in Bangladesh. It all amounts to hostile activities
by Bangladesh against India. In the context of the global mood of
anti-terrorism, Bangladesh is guilty of sustaining and sponsoring terror.
The ramifications of the latest
arms seizure at Chittagong are deep, wide and extremely dangerous.
Apparently, the insurgent elements in India's North East have been receiving
arms supplies through this route. The cost of the current seizure is so
high that it is not possible for any single insurgent group in the
North East to pay for it. The supplies denote a patron or a chain of patrons
somewhere who could be happy with whatever payment is received and making
a donation of the rest which could not be paid for. The supplies could
also be meant for several insurgent groups in the North-East, in the J&K
and for the jihadis both in Bangladesh and in India. Bangladesh has to
explain all aspects of the matter to the satisfaction of India and
of the entire international community.
Bangladesh is growing into a serious
security threat to India and being insidious and clandestine in nature
the threat is all the more pernicious. Bangladesh is being used for
launching hostilities in the North East of the country. The ISI of Pakistan
has struck roots on the plank of Islam and together with Jammat-e-Isami
and the military intelligence wing of the Bangladesh army, it has generated
a fundamentalist environment in the country. The Jammat is a part
of the BNP government and the way it is growing, no future government in
Bangladesh can possibly survive without the support of Jammat. The bare
truth is that a fundamentalist Bangladesh will pose enormous problems to
India and this perception is so real that immediate policy recalculations
by India has become imperative. The minorities in Bangladesh- Hindus, Christians
and Buddhists are living in a state of relentless terror. Noted Bangladeshi
author, Salam Azad, wrote that the minorities in Bangladesh are left with
only three options: to embrace Islam, to leave Bangladesh, or to commit
suicide. It is time to act.
