NEW DELHI: Officials, citing past trends, say that a significant jump in terrorism related activities orchestrated from Bangladesh cannot be ruled out.
On the night of 1 April 2004, the Bangladesh Coast Guard and a team of local police arrived at a jetty in Chittagong harbour on the southeast bank of the Karnaphuli river, which was maintained and used by Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited (CUFL), a urea fertilizer company in Chittagong owned by the state-owned Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation. The information that led to this raid at a central government facility had indicated that they would find weapons and drugs.
The government at the time was headed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who was in an alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami.
However, none of the raiding party members were prepared for what they were about to experience.
When the team reached the jetty, they found ten truckloads of arms and ammunition, which included 4,930 assault rifles and guns, 27,020 grenades, 840 rocket launchers, 300 rockets, 2,000 grenade-launching tubes, 6,392 magazines, and 114,0520 bullets that had already been unloaded from two boats.
This staggering amount of arms and ammunition, which was more than enough to arm two battalions of soldiers and more, was, as the subsequent investigation revealed, meant for the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), which was seeking Assam’s independence from India. According to confessional statements from the accused, National Security Intelligence (NSI) and Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) officials were deeply involved in smuggling weapons for the ULFA and this was only one such illegal, secret arms transfer that was caught.
Further investigations revealed that during the BNP-Jamaat rule, NSI and DGFI officials allegedly provided safe houses and protection to ULFA commander Paresh Baruah, who operated from Bangladesh. What was more shocking was that among the 50-plus officials implicated in the arms smuggling scandal were senior military officers, former government officials, prominent company executives, and key intelligence officials.
These included former Director General of NSI, Brigadier General Abdur Rahim, and former Director DGFI, Major General Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury. Also named in the case were former Industries Minister and Jamaat Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami, former State Minister for Home Lutfozzaman Babar, former Managing Director of Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited (CUFL) Mohammad Mohsin Uddin Talukdar, and former General Manager (Administration) of CUFL Enamul Hoque.
Additionally, former Additional Secretary to the Industries Ministry Nurul Amin, former NSI Director Wing Commander Shahabuddin Ahmed, Major Liakat Hossain, Field Officer Akbar Hossain, and ULFA chief Paresh Baruah were charged. Just days before the arms haul, as per the statements, NSI Director (Security) Wing Commander Shahabuddin Ahmed and DGFI Director (Counter Intelligence Bureau) Brigadier General Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury had met Baruah at the Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka to discuss the arrival and off-loading of the weapons. Shahabuddin was reportedly receiving treatment at the hospital.
On 1 April 2004, NSI Field Officer Md Akbar Hossain travelled to Chittagong to hire trucks for transporting the arms, following Shahabuddin’s instructions. Former NSI Deputy Director (Technical) Major Liakat Hossain was also present in Chittagong to oversee the operation. Liakat, the report shows, was using the alias of Abul Hossain. Brigadier General Abdur Rahim, then NSI Director General, was the one who maintained close contact with those supervising the off-loading and assisted when police obstructed the process.
Former State Minister for Home Lutfozzaman Babar allegedly played a crucial role in facilitating the arms smuggling and attempted to cover up the scandal by forming a probe committee that included Rezzakul Haider, one of the accused in the case. Despite resistance from DGFI Chief Sadiq Hasan Rumi, who wanted Haider replaced, the committee led by former Home Secretary Omar Faruk found NSI officials involved but was pressured by Babar to withhold this information from the final report.
Later, two whistle-blowing police officers Alauddin and Helaluddin were wrongfully implicated, arrested, and tortured by the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) in 2005, following orders from Lutfozzaman Babar.
Further investigations uncovered the involvement of former Additional Secretary to the Industries Ministry, Md Nurul Amin, who was present at the CUFL guest house during the off-loading of the arms.
CUFL Assistant Security Officer Mobin Hossain Khan later testified that he and CUFL Managing Director Mohsin Uddin Talukder met Nurul Amin at Chittagong Railway Station on the night of the arms haul. Senior CUFL officials, including Talukder and General Manager (Administration) KM Enamul Haq, were aware of the arms off-loading but did not take any action.
Additionally, Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer and then Industries Minister Motiur Rahman Nizami was implicated for his involvement in using the CUFL jetty for the off-loading and for his role in the subsequent investigation.
Later, on 30 January 2014, a special court in Chittagong commuted the death sentences of Paresh Baruah and 13 others, including Jamaat-e-Islami chief and then Industries Minister Nizami and former State Minister for Home Babar.
This more than two-decade-old incident is cited as one example to show how treacherous and dangerous Dhaka had become with regard to the security situation in India.
SLEEPING IN THE SAME BED: BNP AND ISI
In September 2012, while appearing before the Pakistani Supreme Court, which was hearing a case on the mandate of the ISI, its former chief Asad Durrani admitted funding BNP during the 1991 parliamentary elections. This was after a media report in a Dubai-based paper had written that the ISI had paid Rs 50 crore to BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia ahead of the 1991 elections, in which the party won and formed government. When Zia came to power again in 2001 till 2006, the ISI again flooded Dhaka with money to destabilize the Indian Northeast by patronizing and providing logistical support.
In July 2002, former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had a secret meeting with jailed ULFA leader Anup Chetia during a visit to Bangladesh at the time when Khaleda Zia was in power. This was revealed by Awami League minister Ashraful Islam in 2010, who stated that Chetia held a one and a half hours meeting that took place at the Sheraton hotel.
When Zia visited India in March 2006, just months before she lost the election, she was handed over a dossier prepared by the Home Ministry that specifically mentioned how the accused in the Delhi and Varanasi bomb blasts were hiding in Bangladesh under the protection of the ISI. Dhaka was also supplied with a list of 172 terrorist camps where terrorists were being trained to foment violence in India.
Nothing came out of these dossiers till the time Sheikh Hasina came to power, a former intelligence officer, who is now retired, recalled.
In the last few years, while facing terror-related issues from Pakistan, Indian agencies had stopped focusing on the situation in Bangladesh as almost all ISI assets and terror camps were shut down due to Hasina’s intervention. Similarly, Dhaka was no longer a “safe haven” for terrorists and criminals as inputs that Indian agencies shared with Dhaka on the presence of wanted terrorists hiding in the country were acted upon swiftly, leading to their deportation and arrest. All that is poised to change now with the BNP and Jamaat coming to power in Dhaka after Sheikh Hasina was forced to flee to India.
More recently, in December 2018, just before the general election, security officials in Dhaka intercepted a telephone conversation that exposed increased foreign interference in Bangladesh’s national election. The seven-minute call featured a discussion between Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, a senior BNP leader, and Shaheed Mehmood Muhammad Sharif, an operative of the Pakistani spy agency ISI. In the conversation, Hossain discussed strategies and requested cooperation with China ahead of the election.
Intelligence sources claim that Sharif’s handler was one Javed Mehdi, a top ISI official. The investigations uncovered that the ISI had devised a plan to use Bangladeshi media for anti-Awami League and anti-India propaganda. ISI operatives reportedly met with editors from several Dhaka-based media outlets to execute this strategy.
According to officials, the Dubai-based ISI operative, Shaheed Mehmood Muhammad Sharif, served as the liaison between the ISI and BNP leaders.
Sharif, sources recalled, maintained contact with BNP’s UAE unit chief Zakir Hossain, and the two met at least 11 times from June to December.
Sharif, a retired officer of Pakistan Army’s 54th long course, still resides in Dubai. During these meetings, discussions included manipulating road safety protests to incite violence. In one intercepted conversation, Sharif apparently asked Zakir for updates on meetings with “the yellow people,” referring to Chinese officials while mentioning that then BNP acting chief, Tarique Rahman had previously had meetings with Chinese officials.
On 4 July 2018, Tarique Rahman, who has been in self-exile in London since 2008, met ISI officials, including Mehdi, in Jeddah. Later Sharif suggested multiple names of BNP leaders for “special tasks” in Dhaka involving China.
One of the leaders identified in the said conversation was Humayun Kabir, BNP’s assistant secretary for international affairs. Kabir, along with BNP vice-chairman Iqbal Hossain Tuku and two other BNP leaders, then visited China from 13 to 16 November.
In September, Sharif sought updates on a Bangladesh government delegation’s visit to China. Zakir told Sharif that China might refrain from meddling due to trade interests with the Bangladesh government. Additionally, investigations revealed that the ISI had planned to influence Bangladeshi media as early as 2017, with a $100,000 fund allocated to promote anti-Awami League and anti-India coverage. This plan included engaging editors and media personnel, including the Bengali daily newspaper.
Pakistan’s deep state, which has been facing serious setbacks on its borders with Afghanistan, with the Taliban government refusing to allow its land to be used as a training centre for India-focused terror groups, with the recent developments in Bangladesh has likely found the opening that it was looking to train and launch terrorists into India from another spot apart from Jammu and Kashmir.
“Sub-section 1” of the Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB), the largest wing of the ISI Directorate, with about 60% of the entire staff of the ISI on its rolls, which especially focuses on India, has already started to set up and revive its assets in Dhaka and the area bordering India. Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous (JIM), another wing of the ISI, which operates spies, is likely to expand swiftly in Bangladesh in the coming days.
Officials, citing the past trend, believe that a significant jump in terrorism related activities which will be orchestrated from Bangladesh in the coming months cannot be ruled out unless the Bangladesh Army, which was allowed to work professionally by Sheikh Hasina, remains un-influenced by the trio of BNP-Jamaat and the ISI.
If this happens, the only viable option left with the security establishment would be to handle such threats in ways it has been doing in the recent past.