India's eastern border needs more attention: Intelligence

KOLKATA, Aug 21 (UNI) India can no longer afford to ignore itseastern border with Bangladesh and Nepal in the wake of growing terrorist activities in the two neighbouring countries, senior intelligence officials said.

"The recent happenings in the two neighbouring countries are serious pointers and we must take effective steps to minimise the subversive activities of the terrorists operating from the two countries," the officials said.

India has been repeatedly warning Bangladesh about the terrorist activities in that country, which included "tacit support" and "hospitality" to Indian insurgent groups operating in the north east.

"If the serial blasts in Bangladesh was a demonstration of power of Islamic terrorists, then India has serious reasons to worry because these terrorists have been planning a 'Greater Bangladesh' comprising areas of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam," the intelligence officials pointed out.

"Besides, these terrorists were being utilised by Pakistani intelligence agency ISI for quite a long time to carry out clandestine activities in India," they said.

"Unfortunately, Bangladesh chose to ignore India's warnings and continued to provide logistic and other supports to the terrorists because of pressure from the Islamic fundamentalist groups and Pakistan's ISI," they said.

The officials said, "Bangladesh had become the latest centre in South Asia for clandestine ar business and the Chinese assault rifles and grenades were being supplied to the Islamic terrorists, the Indian insurgent groups and the Maoists through Bangladesh." They said, "The ISI and the terrorist groups were successful in motivating the fundamentalist political parties and partners in ruling coalition government in Bangladesh to protect the terrorists by not taking any action against those outfits." "Though the Bangladesh Nationalist Party led government banned two terrorist outfits Jamat-ul-Mujaheedin and Jagrata Muslim six months ago following international pressure, practically no effective step was taken by the Bangladesh government to prevent their clandestine activities," the officials observed.

The repeated clai by the present Bangladesh government that there were no terrorists in Bangladesh soil, no longer holds any ground particularly after the serial blasts, a number of Bangladesh newspapers said in recent editorials and demanded stringent action against the terrorists.

The West Bengal government has repeatedly urged the Centre to give more attention to the country's eastern border and demanded deployment of more border guards along the porous border with Bangladesh and Nepal.

"We have been repeatedly telling the centre that Bangladesh has become a threat not militarily but as a safe sanctuary of terrorists.

But the centre is yet to take affective actions, " Chief Minister Buddahdeb Bhattacharjee said.

Senior intelligence officials pointed out that with the strongest vigil along the country's western border, Pakistan's ISI had been increasingly finding it difficult to push in terrorists from that side.

"That's why the ISI created hubs in Bangladesh and Nepal to push in terrorists to India through the porous border with the two countries," they said.

The state government has been demanding deployment of at least 35 battalions of Border Security Force to guard the border with Bangladesh and several battalions of Indo-Tibet border police for deployment along the Nepal border.

But the centre is yet to react in a positive manner to the state government's demand.

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