Islamist militants regrouping in Bangladesh

KUSHTIA (BANGLADESH):

Forty top leaders of Islamist militant outfits are regrouping with their 10,000-plus cadres in south-western Bangladesh in districts bordering India's West Bengal state, authorities have said.

Bangladeshi authorities say they gleaned this information after interrogating Hizb-ut-Towhid militants who were arrested in this border town last week.

Hizb-ut-Towhid is an Islamist terror group run by Bayezid Khan Panni. The outfit is banned in several countries.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has now asked the home ministry to update its dossiers on militant bodies.

The ministry found that of the 33 groups identified so far, four were banned by the Khaleda Zia government after protests at home and an international outcry against activities of the Islamist militants.

The Daily Star quoted unnamed sources in the intelligence agencies as saying that the law enforcers were trying to hunt down the chiefs of those outfits holed up in various districts.

The Hasina government has set up a 17-member task force headed by State Minister for Home Tanjim Soheh Taj to tackle the spread of militancy.

The outfits operating in the region are Allahr Dal, Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami (Huji) and Hizb-ut Towhid.

Panni is currently leading Hizb-ut Towhid. He has written several books to indoctrinate his followers and also distributes leaflets.

According to police, during interrogation Hizb-ut Towhid men told them Panni invited them to prepare for "direct combat".

Police said a large number of members and leaders of the organisation are well-trained and motivated.

Elections-2009: The Fight for Bengal

Ranjit Roy

Left in Bengal likely to suffer a jolt in Lok Sabha elections

Three consecutive reverses in West Bengal Assembly by-elections have put the ruling Left Front in a fix on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls. The Left leaders in general and the CPM in particular could not find a way out to recover before the three-phase Lok Sabha polls in the State slated for April-May. They are still licking the wounds inflicted by the Opposition in the panchayat polls and in Assembly by-polls. The Left candidates have lost by a record margin at Sujapur in Malda, Nandigram in east Midnapore and recently in Bishnupore in south 24 Parganas. The political observers here have described the humiliating defeat of the Left as rural Bengal’s revolt against the communist’s destructive agrarian policy. If the trend continues then the Left in West Bengal is likely to lose between 20 and 22 seats out of a total 42 Lok Sabha seats this time.

In order to convert the rural upsurge against the Left, the Trinamul Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee, has lost no time to forge an alliance with the Congress to prevent major split in the anti-Left votes in West Bengal. After much dilly-dallying over seat sharing between the two parties, it is finally settled that the Trinamul and its allies together will contest in 28 seats and the Congress will field its candidates in 14 Lok Sabha constituencies all over the State. The BJP with its marginal presence (about three per cent votes recorded in recent by-polls) in the State has decided to go alone in the fray. BJP is contesting in 41seats out of 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal. As a result, the Left now has to take a united anti-Left Opposition on the basis of 1:1 at least in 18 constituencies after 32 years of its uninterrupted regime in West Bengal.

Although Marxists put up a brave front claiming that they have won 2001 Assembly elections handsomely against the united opposition by the Trinamul-Congress combine and again in 2004 Lok Sabha polls against the BJP- Trinamul combine, they are now aware about a strong anti-Left wave prevailing in rural Bengal after the blood-bath in Singur and Nandigram. Moreover, even during the last parliamentary elections when there were no Nandigram-Singur episodes, the Left Front together had bagged 35 Lok Sabha seats just by securing a little over 50 per cent of the total votes polled. The CPM alone had bagged 26 seats despite the fact that the party had secured only 38.56 per cent of valid votes polled in 2004 parliamentary elections. No doubt, the split in anti-Left votes had always helped the Left Front winning the maximum seats both in the Assembly and in Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal so far.

Muslim anger

Soon after assuming power with overwhelming majority in 2006 Assembly elections, Bhattacharjee’s government has started grabbing fertile agricultural land for distributing it to dubious business promoters in the name of industrialisation. This led to widespread protests from farmers who were hard-core Left supporters during the 2006 assembly elections. Moreover, the Sachar Report on social, economic and educational status of the Muslims in West Bengal has exposed the Left that they are no longer the friends of the Muslims. The Muslims in West Bengal have voted en masse for the Left during the past 30 years without fail. Now the 27 per cent voters in the Muslim community in the State feel that they are betrayed and cheated by the Left. They are now desperately seeking to teach a lesson by voting against the Left. The poll reverses witnessed in three assembly by-polls are all Muslim dominated rural constituencies.

The Muslims apathy against the ruling Left has given a unique opportunity to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress to build its support base in rural Bengal. Strangely, while the BJP and the Congress ignored the Muslim sentiment in West Bengal, it is Mamata Banerjee who has taken initiative to convert the Muslim’s anger into a political upsurge against the Left. She now plays the same Muslim communal card only to exploit the Muslim vote bank that the CPM once played to win elections in West Bengal

Strangely, the BJP was the first major political party to take the plight of Nandigram to a national platform. The BJP was the lone national party to send a parliamentary delegation, led by the leader of the Opposition, LK Advani and Rajya Sabha Member, Sushma Swaraj, to Nandigram after the carnage there. The delegation was well received by the Muslim villagers there. But the State BJP leaders have failed to take advantage of welcome visit of the central BJP leaders and make it into a firm support base.

Although Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress stole the limelight, she has never cared in the past to improve the social and economic status of the Muslims. Trinamul Congress is a predominantly urban-based political party and has never ventured in rural areas before the Singur-Nandigram farmers’uprise against the CPM. Mamata is a clever opportunist political leader who found the Muslims as well as Hindu farmers revolt against the State government’s destructive farm land acquisition policy a God-gifted opportunity to appear as a Messiah before the poor land losers and turned their anger and frustrations against the ruling Left. She quickly distanced herself with the BJP only to please the Muslims and forged an alliance with the Naxalites and other such ultra-Left forces to have a dent in rural sectors. These ultra-Left forces with their limited resources and influence are active in rural Bengal during the past 32 years of the Left rule. They joined under the Mamata’s flag only to gain political respectability and protection from the police repressions.

Left arrogance

The chief minister,Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s arrogance has added to the misery of the Left further. Soon after taking the reins of the government from Jyoti Basu, his successor Bhattacharjee had promised that he would change the work culture of the government and would make the administration accountable to the people. Bhattacharjee’s tall promises and his personal clean and intellectual image on the one side and utter disunity in the rank and files of the Opposition on the other have helped the Communists to sweep the Assembly elections in 2006 for the seventh consecutive term. The Left Front won 235 seats in a 294-member State Legislative Assembly. The electoral success and media hype have made Bhattacharjee so arrogant that he has declared that government will acquire farm land all over the State for industry without discussing this policy matter in the Cabinet. When the Opposition raised the question of legality in the action of the government, an angry Bhattacharjee retorted, “We are 235 in the Assembly. We don’t care what they are saying.” This arrogance generated from absolute power has simply corrupted the government administration. Moreover, this is for the first time in the long Left rule in Bengal, other Front partners have openly revolted against the CPM’s high-handedness in acquiring farm land for industrialists. No doubt, Bhattacharjee’s unreal industrialisation dream has brought doom for his government as well as his party within two years of assuming power for the seventh consecutive term. Political observers are now keeping their fingers crossed over the success of the Left in the Lok Sabha elections this time.

Any foreign hand in Assam terror?

Rajinder Puri

Official police agencies have claimed categorically that Monday’s bomb blasts in Assam were carried out by the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa). The blasts coincided with Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s visit to Guwahati. They occurred along the route he was to take. They heralded the New Year. They occurred on the day when the government’s new anti-terror law went into operation. Did the timing contain a message? If so, from whom?

Pakistan is reputed to guide the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. Does any foreign power influence Ulfa? Consider the events immediately preceding the Assam blasts. China’s Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei visited Pakistan to advise the President, the Prime Minister and the army chief to talk peace with India. All three made conciliatory statements. The Chinese dignitary then telephoned External Affairs Minster Pranab Mukherjee from Islamabad advising him to reciprocate. He indicated willingness to visit India and facilitate the process.

A leader of deputy minister rank advising the governments of India and Pakistan amounted to barely concealed impudence. Beijing clearly was attempting to assume the role of Big Brother in South Asia. Mr Mukherjee quite properly snubbed the Chinese vice-foreign minister by refusing the offer and not inviting him to New Delhi. Shortly thereafter terrorists targeted Assam. But does any foreign power influence Ulfa, which reportedly carried out the attack? After an earlier Ulfa attack in Assam, Indian police and intelligence officials late October 2008 had claimed that the outfit was seeking shelter in China. They claimed that Ulfa’s top commander Paresh Baruah was camped near the Burma-China border seeking sanctuary. Indian intelligence officials said that an estimated 50 Ulfa militants were holed up in China’s Yunnan Province led by Partha Jyoti Gogoi.

In quick succession after India’s snub to the Chinese official the Assam terror occurred. Should one draw any conclusions from this?

(The writer is a veteran journalistand cartoonist)http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=4&theme=&usrsess=1&id=238737

On the Offensive---Islam in Assam, India

Monalisa Gogoi

Assam is a case study of illegal Bangladeshi migrants on the warpath, natural when the border with an overpopulated country isn’t sealed, says TSI''s Pranab Bora Sixty-five-year-old Lakhiram Bodo describes every moment of the past three months in the relief camp as ‘harrowing’. Despite belonging to the Bodo community – the earliest inhabitants of Assam, and the supposed ‘bhumiputras’, he and the entire Bodo population of Dalgaon Batabari were thrown out of their homes by Bangladeshi immigrants in a matter of minutes. Today, their existence at the relief camp has been brought down to this: a tin shed, four kgs of rice, 1.1 kg of dal, 250 ml mustard oil and some salt, “per person, per week”.

“Fifty years ago, there were hardly a hundred such families here; today there are thousands of families. When they attacked us after the first skirmishes in August this year, we couldn’t resist them; our village was burnt and they killed our people…” Bodo’s voice trails off.

Dalgaon Batabari – near Rowta in lower Assam – is one of many villages that has borne the wrath of the immigrant Bangladeshi, albeit with citizenship papers available everywhere, thanks to the corrupt babus and an apathetic administration that thrives on the Bangladeshi votebank. On August 14, the Bodos brought out a procession opposing the Assam Bandh called by the Muslim Students’ Union of Assam (MUSA) that was protesting against the “harassment of genuine Indian Muslims who were being thrown out of upper Assam districts such as Dibrugarh”, as 23-year-old Badrul Islam, MUSA president, says. The total immigrant Muslim population in lower Assam is about seven million. At the time of independence, the Muslim population in Assam stood at 1.9 million. Now, the average growth rate of Muslims in Assam stands at 18 per cent; that of Hindus at 14. Six of Assam’s 27 districts now have a Muslim majority population. While in 13 districts, the growth rate of Muslims is less than 30, in seven it is less than 40. In Karbi Anglong, it is as high as 73.6 with the population going from 10,000 to 18,000 in 10 years.

Statements from two state Governors – SK Sinha and Ajai Singh – along with the Gauhati High Court in recent times now buttress what organisations like All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), that led the six-year-long anti-foreigners’ agitation beginning 1979, have said all along: that the state has been inundated by Bangladeshis who endangered the very existence of local communities. It was the detection of hundreds of Bangladeshis in the voters’ rolls in 1979 at Mangaldoi that sparked AASU’s anti-foreigners agitation.

Yet, the modus operandi of political groups who speak for the illegal migrant remains the same. MUSA’s Islam accepts that census reports show dangerous population growths in these districts, where other indigenous communities showed normal growth. Yet, every time suspected illegal migrants moving to the upper Assam are handed over to the police, the MUSA protests against the “inhuman treatment meted out to them”. The August 14 bandh call was one such protest.
The October 30 serial bomb blasts in Assam – the state is now home to a number of Islamic militant groups – that killed 90 and injured hundreds was a culmination of events. The blasts were claimed by the militant group Islamic Security Force (Indian Mujahideen). While the Congress-led government continues to blame the blasts on militant groups like United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), till date nothing has come out of its so-called investigation.

Sitting in his small “Office of the Muslim Marriage, Divorce, Registration and Kazi” at Dalgaon, Qazi Md Afzal Hussain, an Assamese Muslim says: “During my father’s time, this was a place of forests where tigers have killed people.” Now, Dalgaon is dominated by immigrants, where Muslims have wiped out tribal belts. As for empowering the Bangladeshi migrant woman – most of them illiterate and some bearing up to 20 children, Hussain says he hasn’t heard of the new nikahnamah released by the All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board.

The results are evident. As opposed to the sparsely populated Bodo relief camp at Rowta; the displaced immigrants lodged at camps at Dalgaon lives in squalor, the camps overpacked with unthinkable living conditions. Bashid Ali, one of the inmates, claims their village was attacked by Bodo and Bengali Hindu people, an indication that the Hindu and Muslim Bangladeshis are now at loggerheads in what, all said and done, is a war for land. The rate at which the immigrant Muslim rampages through the districts of Assam is something that local communities have found impossible to resist. At the receiving end is not just the Bodos, Karbis, Assamese or Bengalis but also the original Assamese Muslim (known as goria), a community that has broken away from the so-called Muslim ‘minority’. “Expect a Bangladeshi as Chief Minister within the next 20 years in this state,” says Nekibur Zaman, Gauhati High Court lawyer, an Assamese Muslim and founder of an organisation ‘Khilonjia Muslim Unnayan Parishad.’ “They may call themselves minorities but there are 20 Bangladeshi MLAs even now in the state Assembly.”

For the “mainstream” politician, all of it is to be shrouded in skewed, convenient statistics. Maulana Fazlul Karim Qasimi, a goria Muslim and the convenor of the Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF), agrees that there is a conspiracy: “For many political parties, keeping the immigrant population an uneducated, proliferating Bangladeshi lot helps their interests, as children born today will vote after 18 years.” Its victims are both the immigrants and local communities. The toll in the August-October clashes stood at over 50. Add to that the 855 students killed during the Assam agitation, followed by the thousands who have been killed during the insurgency that was an offshoot of the agitation. And as people here point out – this is what is happening to India in its northeast, thanks to the our calloys and self-thanking politicians.

http://www.thesundayindian.com/04012009/storyd.asp?sid=6360&pageno=1

Kayani comes out of the closet

Rajinder Puri

At last, General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani has come out of the closet to vindicate an apparent truth that the world had refused to acknowledge. Namely, that it is Beijing and not Washington that calls the shots in Islamabad. America wields clout with the politicians. China has control over the army. The army controls the politicians. Ergo, China controls Pakistan.

Condoleezza Rice, John Negroponte, Richard Boucher and Admiral Mullen were at the head of a procession of US bigwigs who trooped into Islamabad to read the riot act to politicians and the army. There was no impact. Islamabad remained defiant. When politicians such as Nawaz Sharif did speak the truth they quickly retracted to toe the army's line. Worse, even in the comparatively outspoken media, with a few honourable exceptions, noted columnists endorsed Pakistan's farcical state of denial inspired by the army.

Well, China's vice foreign minister came to Islamabad and offered gentle advice to the politicians and the army. Whoosh! General Kayani deflated like a punctured balloon and somersaulted 180 degrees to promote de-escalation! Beijing therefore has left nobody in doubt about Pakistan's source of defiant strength. What lesson should India draw from this? Primarily that it should not be carried away by silly sentiment.

If China has pressured Pakistan now it is for the same reason that it reluctantly climbed down on the Indo-US nuclear deal. With America, Russia and Europe ranged against Islamabad's role in terrorism, China cannot afford to be bracketed with Pakistan which is increasingly perceived as a rogue state. So take with a bucket of salt China's newfound endeavour to restrain Pakistan. Focus instead on the fact that Pakistan's role against India during the last few decades in Kashmir and elsewhere was sustained and encouraged by Beijing.

Nothing has changed as yet. Witness the nitpicking shyster arguments parroted by Pakistani politicians and news columnists that the evidence presented by India on the Mumbai blast would not stand scrutiny in a court of law. What they need to effectively answer is whether the captured terrorist, Kasab, is Pakistani or not? Did the terrorists come by sea from Pakistan or not? The rest is irrelevant.

But Pakistan remains adamant on the core issue. General Kayani has a lot more to do than make a lame statement to restore confidence. India will smell change only after the civilian government in Pakistan visibly enforces its writ on the army. That most likely will be done only after the Communist government in Beijing succeeds in visibly enforcing its writ on China's People's Liberation Army.

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2009-01-01&usrsess=1&clid=1&id=265039

ISI of Pakistan planning to bomb Kolkata

Manan Kumar

NEW DELHI: After wreaking havoc in Mumbai, major towns of West Bengal, including Kolkata, are next on the hit list of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.

Top sources in the Union Home Ministry confirmed that a group of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al- Islami (HuJI) terrorists has made repeated attempts to enter India recently from Bangladesh through the ‘chicken neck’ corridor.

“There is a possibility that some HuJI terrorists have already crossed over with arms and ammunition and are heading to team up with Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), Indian insurgent group, to carry out lethal terror strikes in West Bengal during end-December and early January,” sources said.

Another intelligence report on Wednesday stated that ULFA militants in Bangladesh are likely to enter through the Karimganj district of Assam, a temporary departure from their established routes of transit in Meghalaya.

Both the states have been alerted by the Centre. The alerts come close on the heels of the arrest in Jammu of three Pakistanis, one of them allegedly an army regular. The trio had come from Dhaka and apparently lived in Kolkata before proceeding to Jammu and Kashmir.

Working in cahoots with Bangladesh’s espionage agency Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the ISI, with its sinister plan of ‘bleeding India through thousand wounds’, has made contacts with several Indian insurgent groups.

The recently carried out blasts in Assam that killed 89 were part of this design where the handlers in Bangladesh had roped in ULFA and National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB).

KLO that came into existence in 1995 with the help of ULFA is active in six districts of West Bengal _ South Dinajpur, North Dinajpur, Coochbehar, Jalpaiguri, Malda and Darjeeling _ and four districts of lower Assam - Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Dhubri and Goalpara.

Intelligence agenciesclaim that both ISI and DGFI have made KLO an active partner with HuJI and are constantly helping it to upgrade its strike power by supplying arms, ammunitions and explosives.

“KLO chief Jeevan Singh is sheltered in Bangladesh, and is a protégé of the ULFA,” a senior official said. He hangs around in northern Bangladesh, close to his home constituency. Singh, along with Ranjan Daimary of the NDFB and Paresh Baruah of ULFA are said to be paying off the debt of protection from the HuJI-ISI nexus through "disturbing" eastern India. “Keeping them there cannot be a charitable deed, they would have to pay a price,” said a senior official.

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=ISI+planning+to+bomb+Kolkata&artid=pKpK7D5qi2U=&Title=ISI+planning+to+bomb+Kolkata&SectionID=b7ziAYMenjw=&MainSectionID=b7ziAYMenjw=&SEO=Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-+Islami&SectionName=pWehHe7IsSU=

2008 saw emergence of Islamic militancy in Assam

Sanjoy Ray / GUWAHATI

The year 2008 though witnessed lesser casualties of terrorist violence in the State compared to 2007, it, however, saw the emergence of Islamic militancy in the biggest way, even overpowering the impact of decade-old home-grown insurgency. More than 200 civilians have been killed in the State so far (Mid-December), besides 16 security personnel and about 130 terrorists taking the tally of casualties of insurgency to 369.

Of the 130 terrorists killed across the State, around ten were suspected HUJI activists, seven of them were killed in an encounter with the Army in the Dhubri district in September this year.

The month of October this year witnessed killing of around 90 civilians, eight security personnel and 18 insurgents. The month of April remained the most peaceful phase of the year with only 11 deaths taking place.

Last year, the total number of casualties of terrorist violence was around 437, which included 269 civilians.

As many as 29 blasts have rocked the State till mid-December this year, the October 30 serial blasts, which claimed around 90 lives being the biggest ever terrorist attack the region has ever witnessed.

The growing prominence of the outside players in the State came into the fore on October 30, when nine serial blasts ripped apart the State, including three in Guwahati.

Though investigations into the incident is yet to reach any logical conclusion, the preliminary investigation revealed that the perpetrator of the blasts was not the usual ULFA, but were orchestrated by powers, suspected to be the HUJI, from across the border, with Bodo militants providing logistic support.

“The State is facing a new kind of threat and the focus of law-enforcing has more or less shifted to cross-border terrorism than home-grown, with Islamic fundamentalist groups, operating from foreign lands, emerging as the new players in the game of blood and pushing the State’s insurgent outfits, including the ULFA and NDFB, to roles of side players,” concedes a senior Assam Police official while talking to The Assam Tribune.

“We, however, are not undermining the strength of any outfit, be it ULFA, NDFB or some splinter group,” the official stated.

The year 2008 saw the ULFA suffering revolt in its ranks and the proximity of its top leaders with Bangladeshi groups drew flak even from its own members, resulting in unilateral ceasefire agreement by the A and C company of ULFA’s 28 battalion. The potent wing of the outfit decided to join the mainstream with top leaders including Mrinal Hazarika, Joon Bhuyan and Jiten Dutta, leading the cadres.

The Dima Halom Daogah (Jewel faction), popularly known as Black Widow, also made its presence felt, unleashing a reign of terror with killings and blasts in the North Cachar Hills, killing at least 25 people, including police and railway personnel, within a week in May.

In the aftermath of the blasts, the NDFB leadership in designated camps in the State decided to replace Ranjan Daimary as the C-in-C with Dhiren Boro.

The All Adivasi National Liberation Army (AANLA), fighting an armed battle for rights of the Adivasi people, suffered a major setback when its ‘C-in-C’ Mangra Oran alias David was arrested this month from Jharkhand.

http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details.asp?id=dec2608/at08