It seems the wheel has turned full circle: it is Dhaka’s turn now to complain to India regarding anti-Bangladesh activities being conducted from parts of West Bengal.
Bangladeshi investigating agencies probing the recent Gulshan café massacre and the extremist attack on a large Eid congregation at Sholakia, claim that arms and ammunition used in both cases had been procured and smuggled ‘from across the international border, from India.’ Without disclosing more details, Mr. Manirul Islam, Additional Police Commissioner of Dhaka, was quoted by Bangladeshi media as saying that the extremists involved ‘would be arrested shortly.’
Both incidents resulted in loss of lives, but the Gulshan Café attack attracted greater international attention, as 22 people including 6 foreigners, were killed by four gunmen. The attackers were also killed by the police.
India had been consistently requesting Bangladesh in the past crackdown against armed secessionists/extremists who had set up shelters and camps there. During the spells of Awami league rule, Bangladesh had arrested ULFA leaders, Manipur insurgents, frozen their bank accounts and demolished their camps/shelters. Feeling the heat, insurgents from Tripura and other areas had shifted base to the jungles of Myanmar, close to the international border.
Bangladesh had provided details of Islamic extremists and criminals wanted for political murder and other crimes who were known to have escaped to West Bengal. Central law enforcing agencies and the state police have extradited some people, responding to Dhaka’s request for action.
However, the first major signs that the situation had taken a 180 degree turn were available after the Oct 2 2014 bombs blast at Khagragarh, Burdwan, killing three people. The victims were Bangladeshis connected with the banned Islamic extremist organisation, Jamat-e-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JUM or JMB). Over 60 live bombs were seized, along with large quantities of explosives and chemicals. The house at Khagragarh had been turned into a well-guarded illegal laboratory, engaged in making explosives that were smuggled into Bangladesh.
This was unarguable evidence that anti-Bangladesh activities were being planned and executed from Indian territory in West Bengal. The house had been rented out to the miscreants by a local Trinamool Congress leader. The number of arrests made in connection with the Khagragarh blast was around 20. They include several Bangladeshis, some rounded up from other states.
Somewhat disturbingly, such cross-border links and involvement of criminals and extremists of both countries operating in tandem have later been found in bomb blasts in parts of Midnapore district as well.
Cordial Indi-Bangla relations at present have resulted in closer co-operation and communication between the law enforcing agencies in both countries. Even as Burdwan was in focus, the two problem districts for both countries have been Malda and Murshidabad. Both share a border with Bangladesh and are Muslim-majority districts.
The special factors hampering normal investigation by Indian authorities in these districts were revealed some time ago by a senior NCB official of the Eastern Zone. Malda, he told the mediapersons at a recent briefing, was a ‘difficult area for government agencies to work in… especially in terms of the communal aspects and for territorial reasons’.
Certain areas in Malda and Murshidabad are known to have turned ultra sensitive from the security point of view. These include Kaliachak, Golapganj, Baliadanga, Mohabbatpur and Mothabari, to give only a few examples. Even routine demonstrations in different issues have often ended up in massive attacks launched against policemen or local thanas.
Analysts are not surprised.BSF authorities have earlier complained of non-cooperation from a section of local people when it comes to carrying out even normal duties like checking cattle smuggling or dacoities, illegal trafficking by drug runners or gun smugglers, in both districts. It was from Murshidabad that one of the killers of the founder of Bangladesh, the late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Mohammad Moslehuddin, narrowly escaped from the clutches of state police, after a definite tip off from Bangladesh.
In addition Malda has also emerged as the country’s crime epicenter in the fake Indian currency racket operated by Pakistan along with Bangladeshi criminals. “Almost 80% of the seizures of fake Indian currency notes are made in Malda these days,” according to Central intelligence sources. “Counterfeit currency sourced from Malda are seized in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and other States regularly.”
To give an example, in 2015 alone, fake currency amounting to Rs 2,60,82,000 had been recovered from Malda– the largest haul in the country! Altogether 24 people were arrested. They included local men of influence as well as raw, young operators used as couriers. In recent days, fake currency operators who get regular supplies from Bangladesh, are using jobless Muslim youths from Nadia, Malda and Murshidabad. Some, working as unskilled labourers in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and other states, are suborned into turning carriers.
In recent times, central agencies have made some progress in tracking down a couple of kingpins in India as well as Bangladesh (where also some arrests have been made.) Hafiz Sheikh alias Noor Mohammad, a Bangladeshi, is one of these men, arrested from West Bengal. He was in Kolkata for over two years, on the run from Bangladeshi police. Prior to his arrest, he had visited several Indian states from his base in Bengal and had put up a network in place.
Recent investigations indicate that criminals from both countries have been running in different so-called ‘placement agencies’ and ‘service agencies’ that assist people in making passports available to people. Their infiltration into such sensitive work is a matter of concern for the Central government.
In both Malda and Murshidabad, illegal poppy cultivation is carried by some farmers who enjoy political protection of the ruling party of the moment. From the sale and smuggling of opium, cough syrup and other items in Bangladesh at high prices, operators buy arms and explosives that are regularly transported across the border to be used against the police and Awami league supporters, mostly.
Kolkata-based observers feel that given the overall comprehensive deterioration in the law and order situation in some districts of West Bengal — parts of 24 Parganas or Nadia are not ‘safe’ either, as hubs of anti-national activities — the time may not be far off when both at the state and central levels, law enforcing agencies would have to play a far more active role.
