(1888PressRelease)
July 03, 2007 - American pressure may have forced Pakistan to marginally scale down terrorist infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir, but Islamabad has, in order to keep the pot boiling for India, activated its terror and militant sells controlled by it in the country. It wants in concert with some other unfriendly forces to keep India bogged in internal conflicts and to prevent it from attaining its full stature internationally. While the link of ULFA and other secessionist organizations to Pakistan's notorious Inter Service Intelligence via Bangladesh are well known and fully established, the train blast in Mumbai, Samjauta Express, Shramjeevi Express and others and bombing of Mecca Masjid, Malegaon and other places bear clear Pakistani fingerprints.
Some of those responsible for such reprehensible acts have confessed to having received training and cash in Pakistan. While the money to run the operations of some of the involved fundamentalist institutions comes mostly from charities in the oil-rich Gulf States, the ISI provides the motivation, training and weapons to carry out terrorist activities in India. The Government has banned a couple of such organizations, such as, the Student Islamic Movement of India, but several other militants outfits are still involved in anti-national activities. Their purpose is to try to provoke communal and ethnic hatred and violence and challenge the authority of the State.
One of the Mecca Masjid bombing suspects has disclosed that at least 14 young men from Hyderabad had undertaken secret journeys to Pakistan and received training in terror camps there. Though Islamabad continues to infiltrate saboteurs in various parts of India, its latest strategy is to train local recruits for the assigned tasks so that an accusing finger is not pointed at it. Harkatul-jehad-e-Islami and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba have been active for several years and have lately intensified their activities on orders from Islamabad. Some other culprits have direct links with Bangladesh's Harkatul-jihad-e-Islami, which runs training camps on behalf of the Pakistani agency.
The Uttar Pradesh police have just nabbed HUJI's head of Indian operations who was responsible for the blast in Delhi-bound Shramjeevi Express, terror attack on the Sankat Mochan temple and cantonment railway station in Varanasi and the Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad. Of late, HUJI has become a major terror threat in India with deadly attacks executed with military precision. The group is known to be operating in close coordination with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir-based Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, which has been blamed for some major blasts. Thus, many of the dreamed fundamentalist-cum-terrorist outfits operating inside Pakistan have set up full-fledged branches in India under different names to execute their agenda—destabilizing the Indian State.
Even though Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda does not have a presence as such in India, its enterprise continues to flourish in Pakistan from where it has traveled to Bangladesh. But there exist some organizations within India which are influenced by its ideology and appear willing to carry out its designated agenda. New Delhi has already been alerted to such a possibility and it is taking appropriate precautionary measures. Even though some Pakistani "modules" in India have been busted, the number is so large that unless something drastic happens, these will continue to make trouble. For this the active support of Muslim religious organizations is essential to ensure that any militant activity is not encouraged by them. Before the ban on IMI was clamped, some of these organizations had vehemently protested against any action being taken against it until the State was able to prove its clear links with anti-national activities.
Coming to North-Eastern India, even though there is some peace in Nagaland due to the cease-fire agreement with the NSCN (IM), the Khaplang faction is still at war and its activities are under constant watch. Their demand for Greater Nagalim comprising all the Naga areas in the adjoining states has already created a great deal of tension within Manipur and provided another cause for agitation to the people, who have yet to fully settle down to normal, peaceful life. The State erupts into violence from time to time over the issue of alleged high-handedness of the security forces and human rights violations but, considering the threat perception in the context of the entire North-east the Government of India is not prepared yet to repeal the Disturbed Areas Act. Perhaps, the demand will fizzle out if the security forces exercise greater caution while undertaking anti-militancy operations in the State and ensure that their Service discipline is not breached in any way while dealing civilians, with particularly, women.
United Liberation Front of Asom presently remains the biggest organization operation mostly in Assam which continues to cause headache to both Central and State governments. A few years back it created an embarrassing situation for India by establishing hundreds of camps inside neighbouring Bhutan, from where they were eventually evicted through military action that caused the insurgents serious loss of life. No doubt, it took time to recover from the loss by retreating to its sanctuary inside Bangladesh; it seems they are now ready to resume its secessionist agenda, obviously under instructions from Islamabad. The recent bomb blast in several parts of Assam clearly bear ULFA's seal though the outfit, as always, keeps denying its involvement in incidents involving civilian casualties.
Bangladesh and Myanmar both are being used by ULFA as sanctuaries to which they retreat when under pressure from the Indian forces. In Bangladesh, Pakistan has been running an anti-India terrorism set-up for many years where cadres of several secessionist outfits receive training and cash.
Successive governments in Bangladesh have denied the existence or any such camps run by the ISI, or of the ULFA leadership and cadres, whose whereabouts are well-known to the people. The military-backed interim administration headed by Fakhruddin Ahmed has given assurances of cooperation in dealing with the matter and the Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon has had a productive round of discussions with the authorities in Dhaka. The problem cannot be simply wished away and needs to be tackled jointly.
Myanmar, on the other hand, has been cooperative and has agreed to institutionalize cooperation between the armies of the two countries for operations against the ULFA and other insurgent groups in the North-east. Though Myanmar has, from time to time, been cooperating with India's drive against insurgency in the north-east and ahs even taken action on the basis of information provided to it. A couple of joint military operation in the past related to Naga insurgents, but ULFA's presence is a relatively new factor. Gen Maung Aye, Chairman of the ruling State Peace and Development Council has promised to pass on instructions to his commanders along the border to work out with the Indian Army on how to operationalise the understanding. Owing to the gradually improving relations between the two countries and India's commitment to help in the country's development, Myanmar is expected to respond to Indian request in future about tackling the ULFA or other militants who may take refuge there.
Even though hope was generated last year when an intermediary tried to broker peace between the governmental and ULFA, the militant outfit broke the talks apparently on instructions from its masters in Islamabad, operating through Dhaka. Peace in India's northeast goes against Pakistan's evil agenda. In its quest for peace, New Delhi has made a fresh move for talks with the ULFA but on condition that the top leadership including Arbinda Rajkhowa and Paresh Barua convey willingness for such negotiations. The centre has assured to sympathetically consider facilitating a meeting between ULFA leaders and the five serious leaders of the outfit who are in jail to discuss the peace process. ULFA has been demanding unconditional release of its held leaders, but the centre does not want to fall into the trap again and maintain that it could be linked to the progress of the peace process.
ULFA is now trying to widen the regional divide and capitalize on the fear among the Assamese people that they would be reduced to a minority by migrants from other states and also from Bangladesh. There have been several attacks on camps for laburers from generations. But the people of other states whose were killed have not been provoked to retaliate and thus serve ISI's objective of spreading the unrest to neighbouring states of Bihar, Jharkhand and west Bengal. While the door to negotiations should be kept open, the Government should resume full-scale operations against the ULFA to curb its secessionist demands. That should serve a lesson also to its masters abroad operating through Bangladesh.
