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Bangladesh help sought to counter ISI threat |
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India has sought Bangladesh’s help to counter ISI’s plan to launch Kashmir type offensive against its security forces in the North-East. This was conveyed to the visiting Bangladesh Home Minister, Mr Mohammed Nasim, when he held discussions with Union home minister, Mr L K Advani, in Delhi last week. Mr Advani had personally invited Mr Nasim to Delhi to discuss and evolve a joint strategy for combating the growing militancy in the North-East. The Union Home ministry has information that ISI-backed attacks on security forces by Indian insurgent groups in the North-East may break out any day. While both Home Ministers agreed to have greater coordination between them and their officials regarding ISI-related activities, Mr Nasim made it known that Hasina’s Awami League Government too was a target of the ISI which was trying to destabilize it in all possible ways. The ISI he pointed out, had a free run in Bangladesh when Begum Khaleda Zia’s BNP was in power. The ISI operatives provided training and funds to insurgents to run the camps. They were also allowed to use Cox’s Bazar as a transit route to the North-East for shipment of arms from the Far-East. But we have closed down all those insurgent camps which were run with open or clandestine support of previous regimes. For this we have incurred the wrath of both the insurgents as well as of our rightist Opposition parties.
Mr Nasim told Mr Advani that the ISI was masterminding the current movement led by the BNP and three other extreme right parties to dislodge the Awami League Government. The sole purpose of their movement was to save the lives of self-confessed killers of Bangabandhu and senior Awami League leaders including Tajuddin Ahmed, Syed Nazrul Islam and Mansur Ali. A lower court has sentence them to death and the sentence is awaiting confirmation from the High Court.
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