Author: Bisheshwar Mishra/TNN
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 16, 2004
Insurgent outfits like United Liberation
Front of Asom (Ulfa). All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and the National
Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM) have found sanctuaries as
well as conductive climate to launch business ventures in Bangladesh.
In what represents an audacious
diversion from their stock in trade of terror and narco trafficking
and gun running, these groups have established businesses in collaboration
with senior figures in Dhaka's political establishment. The ULFA
brass has moved into hotel business and garment industry. Hotel
Surma International (Tajmahal Road Dhaka), Hotel Mohammadia (Mirpur
Road, Dhaka), Hotel Padma International (Banaani, Dhaka), Hotel
Keya International (Jinda Bazar, Sylhet), Hotel Yamuna (Sylhet),
Hotel Vasundhra (Chittagong) and Hotel Rajking (Pahartali,
Chittagong) have one thing in common: they all owned by Ulfa.
At a time when global sensitivity
has led to efforts to choke off funds to terror groups, after 9/11.
Ulta has been comfortably running business establishments like Usha
International (Dhaka), Anirban Garments Ltd (Pahartai, Chittagong)
and Karachi Garment Industry (Chittagong). Some Ulfa-run business
establishments in Chittagong and Cox's Bazar are personal properties
of top ULFA leaders Paresh Baruah and Arvind Rajkhova, who have also
acquired a couple of tea gardens.
A list of all such business establishments
was scheduled to be handed over to the Bangladesh authorities on
Wednesday by a delegation headed by India's home secretary Dhirendra
Singh.
India was aware of the growing business
interests of Ulfa all along but had kept quiet. However, stung by
Dhaka's charge about its role in the recent attack on the Awami League
rally, New Delhi has decided to confront the Bangladesh authorities
with 'impeccable evidence" about the patronage that Ulfa and other
insurgent groups have received in the neighbouring country.
India's case is that a thriving
business network would not have been possible without
the support of the authorities. Sources pointed without that the
strings of local administration were in the hands of Prime Minister
Khaleda Zia's son Tariq Zia and her brother Salahuddin Qader Chaudhary.
Top intelligence sources said that
the name of Tariq Zia had also figured during the inquiry into the
Chittagong arms haul of May 2, 2004. However, the matter was hushed
up, and till date no details of the investigation, on the interception
of two armsladen trawlers which off-loaded a huge consignment of
arms at Chittagong port, have come out.
When contacted, a spokesman in the
Bangladesh High Commission, Anwarul Haq, denied this. "This is far
from truth,' he said, adding that the Chittagong case investigation
was still going on and about a dozen people had been charged.
The arms haul had to be carried in 10 trucks. The US authorities
as well as Indian authorities have been pressing the Bangladesh government
to reveal the outcome of the inquiry, but to no avail. The
ruling Bangladesh National Party has no compunction in allowing
anti-India insurgent groups to function from the Bangla soil, because
it considers New Delhi to be favourably disposed towards its chief
adversary , the Awami League. That its coalition partner, Jamaat-e-Islami,
is avowedly anti-India has only worked to the benefit of the insurgents
.
Indeed. For the current ruling establishment
in Dhaka, support to the Indian insurgents serves, apart from harrying
India, another purpose as well. In exchange for the support to these
groups, their patrons have been extracting huge amounts to enrich
themselves as well as to finance the organizational needs.
