How Hasina, with India’s support, broke the back of Pak-sponsored terror in Bangladesh

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh is presently at low ebb on militancy by Muslim extremists with or without links to the international terror network.

But top terrorism researchers and anti-terrorism police officials do not rule out any possibility of visitation of terrorism in the country, especially by the home-grown Islamic jihad.

Two secretive groups, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Ansarul Islam, presently dominate Bangladesh’s jihadist landscape, a top Counter Terrorism & Transnational Crime (CTTC) official confirmed who declined to be identified for security reasons.

Since 2015, two jihadist groups have targeted foreigners, secularists, intellectuals, religious, and sectarian minorities, and other perceived opponents, writes International Crisis Group.

In the last decade, despite widespread acts of violence by Islamic extremists, officially Bangladesh had always denied the presence of international jihadist forces inside its borders.

“There’s no Islamic State [ISIS] in Bangladesh,” declared Bangladesh Prime Minister and Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina in February 2016.

This does not imply that Bangladesh can lower its guard on terrorism and no country can afford to do so, says Prof Imtiaz Ahmed, a high-profile researcher on terrorism and violent extremism.

Sheikh Hasina’s government adopted zero-tolerance for terrorism, with several institutions dedicated to countering and preventing terrorism and violent extremism in Bangladesh, says Prof Ahmed of Dhaka University.

Nearly two decades ago, security and intelligence specialists at a conference of Intelligence Summit at Pentagon City, Washington DC predicted that Bangladesh will become the next epicentre for terrorism and jihad unless Bangladesh authority takes steps to contain the imminent crisis. During the same period, similar warnings were given by the New York Times and Washington Post.

Bangladesh nationals have joined terror hotspots in 36 countries. Hundreds of the recruits in different periods boarded flights from Dhaka international airport, with full knowledge of security agencies.

Since the 1980s, for three decades, nondescript militants from Bangladesh or trained in Bangladesh entered Afghanistan, Chechnya, Egypt, Aceh province in Indonesia, Jammu & Kashmir, Malaysia, Myanmar, Mindanao in the Philippines and other Muslim countries where jihadists were active.

Earlier concerned people and national media often interpreted that the radicalised militants are recruited from among the illiterate rural population, pointing their fingers at students who studied in tens of thousands of Madrassa (Islamic schools) spread all over Bangladesh.

Exiled Bangladesh-origin feminist author Taslima Nasreen, rubbished the arguments that poverty makes somebody a terrorist.

Well, political scientist Prof Ahmed has conducted an in-depth study ‘Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Violent Extremist Offenders in Bangladesh’ and interviewed scores of captive militants both faith-based and left extremism in prisons.

People with relatively poor financial backgrounds are more susceptible to faith-based extremism, he added.

Ahmed said the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, had created a major impact in Bangladesh, with hundreds of militants who joined the Mujahideen during the anti-Soviet campaign against the invasion of Afghanistan following the calls from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States to resist communism in Afghanistan.

After the collapse of the Mujahideen-led regime in Kabul, most of the militants from Bangladesh returned home and started a violent campaign under HuJI-B (Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Bangladesh) under the complicity of the government.

Fazlul Rahman, a Bangladeshi-born jihadist and founder of HuJI-B, joined by dreaded jihadist leaders from Pakistan, Egypt and the Middle East, were the five associates who signed Osama bin Laden’s first-international 1988 ‘fatwa’ purportedly was a call for jihad against the United States and its ‘infidel’ allies.

Ahmed explains the figure of the exact number of Bangladesh nationals who fought alongside the Mujahideen is unknown, but others put the figures at 3,000-foot soldiers.

Interestingly there is no information on whether militants from Bangladesh joined the Taliban during the two decades of America’s presence in Afghanistan, and the reason was absence of sponsors and recruitment.

The departure of flights to jihad’s hot spot destination and subsequently the return of hundreds of militants under the nose of the security agencies only happen with the state’s complicity of the Islamic-nationalist regime of Khaleda Zia, several counter-terrorism analysts described.

The recruitment, investment and radicalisation by outlawed Al Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in Indian Sub-continent (AQIS), Ansar al-Islam, Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), Hizb ut-Tahrir (Bangladesh), HuJI-B, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or Daesh), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and so on so forth are stringently monitored and data thoroughly analysed by CTTC expert team with inputs from other anti-terror units and friendly intel agencies, including the United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism (UNOCT).

The fresh recruitments in recent times are through end-to-end encrypted messaging apps organised by mostly “elite urban young men” who were reported missing by their families and are accommodated discretely in temporary sleeper cells operated by the jihadist network.

Often the sleeper cells are busted and the missing persons reported to the police are found. Instead of returning them to their families, they land in high-security prison cells.

At least 615 extremists within the age bracket of 25-40 are currently held in prisons, among whom 371 are on trial and 244 were convicted, according to a study on ‘Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Violent Extremist Offenders in Bangladesh’ published in September 2022 by Centre for Genocide Studies (CGS) of Dhaka in collaboration with CTTC.

The rehabilitation of violent extremist offenders VEO is a critical task for a nation-state, recommends Ahmed. The government has employed several hard and soft approaches to deal with the threat of violent extremism.

The police and other anti-crime forces have a deradicalization programme, as well as rehabilitation and reintegration into society. The authorities have plans to enlarge a proactive programme for the rehabilitation and reintegration of faith-based VEOs are on the table.

The recent sleeper cells of the terror network are reportedly low in budget and ordinance, unlike the high-profile ISIS jihadists responsible for the carnage at Holey Artisan restaurant in an upscale residential area in Dhaka in July 2016. The jihadists were armed to the teeth with automatic rifles, grenades and knives.

Possibly an hour before the fire-fight with the heavily armed military commandos, the Islamic State’s Amir for the Bengal [Bangladesh] region Shaykh Abu Ibrahim Al Hanif [aka Tamim Chowdhury], spoke to their clandestine news agency Amaq. He dubbed the dead militants as fallen martyrs – all young men in their 20s – posing with a terror black flag of the dreaded Islamic State.

In fact, two months before the brutal assault, Canadian-Bangladeshi-born Chowdhury, the mastermind of the ‘Dhaka Attack’ dared to bully Bangladesh and India in the 14th edition of the defunct Dabiq — the Islamic State’s online magazine.

“Bengal is an important region for the caliphate [Islamic Empire] and the global jihad due to its strategic geographic position,” Chowdhury ranted.

In typical terror rhetoric, “Bengal is located on the eastern side of India, whereas Wilāyat Khurāsān [the Afghanistan-Pakistan region] is located on its western side. Thus, having a strong jihad base in Bengal will facilitate performing guerrilla attacks inside India simultaneously from both sides and facilitate creating a condition of tawahhush [fear and chaos] in India along with the help of the existing local mujahideen there.”

The rogue Islamic State in 2015’s dared to declare Jihad (holy war) against “the [so-called] secular murtaddin [infidels] of the present Awami League government” and threatened that “the soldiers of the Khilafah will continue to rise and expand in Bengal and their actions will continue.”

Not to anybody’s surprise the official Dabiq magazine attributed the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) as ‘nationalist murtaddin’ and the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) as “parliamentary murtaddin”, the online magazine wrote that they [BNP and JeI] are an alliance of ‘grave-worshippers’ who falsely claim to be “lovers of the Prophet”.

On a note, ISIS laments that various “jihadi” groups in Bangladesh became fragmented through disputes over issues of creed, methodology, leadership, strategy, and tactics.

Fortunately, most of the sleeper cells of ISIS in Bangladesh and India have been bulldozed by anti-terror forces with credible two-way intel shared with Dhaka and New Delhi.

The intel immensely helped to accurately analyse various info and could zero in on the locations of ISIS militants. The targets were successfully raided by the CTTC, highly trained anti-terror units of Dhaka Metropolitan Police and smashed the jihadist outfit in Bangladesh.

Like the global terror outfit Al-Qaeda, ISIS’s covert activities have been severely dented in Bangladesh.

Simultaneously the jihadist’s sleeper cells in adjoining Indian states across Bangladesh territory were also smashed by Indian Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).

Since the assassination of Islamic State supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and other leaders by US drone attacks in Syria and Iraq, ISIS terrorism has significantly scaled down threats in South Asia.

The in-road of terror footprint was globally established after the US-allied-led ‘War Against Terrorism’ and Afghanistan was invaded to punish Al-Qaeda and Taliban’s high command and crush the global terror network.

When they (Al-Qaeda) were on the run, Al-Qaeda’s communications and finance surreptitiously moved to Bangladesh in collaboration with the notorious Pakistan spy agency Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI).

The ISI hawks of Rawalpindi GHQ negotiated with rogue officers within the Bangladesh security agency of Director-General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) to provide logistics and security to Al-Qaeda to setup their clandestine operations from upscale Gulshan in Dhaka, according to researcher/writer Mohiuddin Ahmed in his book ‘Hunt for Al-Qaeda (Al Qaeda’r Khoje)’.

For example, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia knew about the covert operations and was vetted by his delinquent son Tarique Rahman who established ‘Hawa Bhaban’, a powerhouse parallel to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

Several sources suggest the former security agencies officials who are privy to the process of creating a safe house for the most-wanted jihadists in the posh Gulshan area.

The terrorist hub was uncovered by an elite investigation team of British TV Channel-4 in November 2002. The investigative journalists unveil the ISI nexus with DGFI in providing a safehouse for Al-Qaeda on the campus of a mosque.

The revelation came with a heavy price. The Channel-4 journalists and local fixers (including this journalist) were arrested and sued under sedition laws. They were interrogated, tortured and intimidated by three DGFI officials.

The presence of Al-Qaeda in Bangladesh was exposed in a Time magazine October 2002 cover story “Deadly Cargo” after a painstaking investigation found clandestine military training camps bordering Bangladesh-Myanmar inaccessible hill forests of Ukhiya, in Cox’s Bazar and were operated by Al-Qaeda and coordinated by HuJI.

The camps accommodated nearly 2,500 jihadists. It is difficult to ascertain how many batches and what number of combatants were trained in Ukhiya.

The separatist outfits: United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), Bodo Liberation Tigers Force (BLTF) and Kamtapur Liberation Organization (KLO), National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) and the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and the list grows on and on were provided shelter and logistics in Bangladesh territory.

Taking advantage of India’s pitch against illegal migration in the northeast from Bangladesh, the authorities furtively provided shelter to their leaders and allowed their combatants to set up camps inside Bangladesh territory.

Their finance, logistics and ordinance were exclusively provided by ISI. In one such, gunrunning operation destined for Assam, a huge stash (10 truckloads) of weapons, ammunition, rocket launchers and hand grenades were accidentally seized by police when it was unloaded under the cover of darkness at a jetty in Chittagong (now Chattagram) in April 2004.

The ordinance originated from Cambodia was shipped by ace gunrunners and unloaded at Chattagram. The ULFA military wing chief Paresh Baruah was physically present, while mid-level officers of DGFI and National Security Intelligence (NSI) were supervising the unloading of the illegal consignment from a large fishing vessel, as reported in the Bangladesh Observer.

After 2009, with Hasina in power, Dhaka and Delhi agreed to seize cross-border terrorism. Hasina’s crackdown detained most of the separatist leaders and deported them to India, where the belligerents are held as prisoners of war (POW). Scores of militant camps were dismantled.

Simultaneously, on the orders of Bangladesh [Central] Bank, all the bank accounts of the separatist outfits and their allied business conglomerates were shut down.

The sudden move by the authorities severely fractured the backbone of the separatist movement in northeast India, also known as Seven Sisters.

The nexus between Pakistan and Khaleda Zia was established after the former ISI chief General Asad Durrani admitted to meddling in northeast Indian states and funding the right-wing BNP during the 1991 general elections in that country.

The confession was made at Pakistan’s Supreme Court’s hearing on the spy agency that had allegedly disbursed Rs 50 crore to BNP chairperson and former prime minister Khaleda Zia ahead of the 1991 elections in which the BNP won and formed the government.

It is presumed that the ISI was active in Bangladesh whenever the BNP has been in power (1991-96) and later during 2001-2006.

Similarly, Khaleda’s assassinated husband General Ziaur Rahman provided umbrellas for Nagaland and Mizoram secessionist leaders and allowed guerrilla camps to be set up in Chattagram Hill Tracts (CHT) in the last quarter of the 1970s.

The shakeup in DGFI and other state intelligence agencies was initiated by Hasina after she became Prime Minister 14 years ago. She broke the nexus with foreign intelligence, especially ISI’s local patrons which have vanished in quicksand.

On the other hand, Bangladesh counter-terrorism officials dug into the covert activities of diplomats from Pakistan. The furore over expelling diplomats from Dhaka and Islamabad caused fresh diplomatic rows between the two countries.

Bangladesh expelled two diplomats, one woman envoy for alleged “terror financing” and another for “spying”, while Pakistan expelled a woman diplomat from Islamabad for an unknown reason.

A ‘new chapter’ for terror in Bangladesh seems to have surfaced in the Rohingya refugee camps teeming with dispossessed youths. The camps are another fertile ground for potential recruitments for extremism – some recruitments were voluntary, others were coercion and intimidation to join the banned Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA, also called Harakah al-Yaqin) to separate north Arakan for the homeland of the Rohingyas.

ARSA’s supremo and key leaders were born in Karachi, Pakistan and raised in Saudi Arabia – some Bangladesh security experts believe the shadows of the terror network were nurtured by ISI, which rang alarm bells in both Dhaka and New Delhi.

Pakistan-based terror outfits were looking for fresh ground for jihad. Immediately, the Pathankot attack mastermind Mohammad Masood Azhar, founder of Pakistan-based terrorist organisation JeM in September 2017 called on the world’s Muslims to unite for this cause of the persecuted Rohingya. “We have to do something and do it urgently. Myanmar’s soil is earnestly waiting for the thumping sound of the footsteps of the conquerors”.

“The dream [of Al-Qaeda] is to create a larger Islamic beyond the territorial limits of Bangladesh to include Muslim areas of Assam, north Bengal and Burma’s [Myanmar] Arakan province.” That dream, Alex Perry writes in Time magazine that if Islamic terrorists were allowed to continue their operations in Bangladesh, could be a nightmare for the region.

The HuJI-B, JeM, LeT and AQIS envisaged engaging the Myanmar troops and anti-Rohingya Buddhist monks through Islamic jihad to create a haven, which Bangladesh security forces are hell-bent on not happening in the region.

First published in the India Narrative, New Delhi, India on April 25, 2023

(Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. Views expressed are personal. Twitter: @saleemsamad)

Military hawks gives sermons to Pakistan lawmakers

Is a rogue spy agency calling the shots in Pakistan?

SALEEM SAMAD

Pakistan is possibly the only country in South Asia where military hawks nesting in Rawalpindi GHQ give sermons to lawmakers and legislators in Islamabad on how to desist from engaging in divisive politics on issues of national interest.

Earlier this month, Pakistan’s Parliamentary Committee on National Security was debriefed on the prevailing situation in the country and region by no less than the director-general of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed.

Pakistan’s rogue spy agency is calling the shots in Pakistan. The “Pakistan Military Incorporated” flexes its muscles because of the extra-constitutional powers that it has illegally appropriated over all the state organs, including the judiciary.

What the ISI chief said undoubtedly makes perfect sense, but his discourse on political correctness to legislators has raised eyebrows among the civil society, independent media, and rights groups.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan -- with his election promise for “Naya Pakistan” -- has swallowed his nerve to speak out against the Rawalpindi GHQ hawks. His “wahi” (sermons) come from the military bigwigs and not from his civil or political advisers. 

He seems to have lost confidence in the politicians and legislators from the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). The wings of the party leaders were cropped, and their beaks waxed to stop them from chirping in satisfaction of Rawalpindi.

Political observers argue that Khan, the cricketer turned politician, is backed by the military, and that the hawks engineered the July 2018 elections and installed a puppet regime of PTI. Meanwhile, the PTI politicians snorted against military hegemony, but would not dare blow the gaff.

Pakistan’s premier English newspaper The Dawn underwent legal harassment and intimidation by the dreaded spy agency ISI, after a news story in October 2016 appeared on the front page: “Act against militants or face international isolation, civilians tell [the] military,” reflecting the anger of the civil society and rights groups.

The outcry of civil society is weak but revealed that Rawalpindi’s hawks have continued patronage to jihadist terror networks, fanning conflicts by Islamist militants in neighbouring countries -- Afghanistan and India.

Pakistan has failed to block the military hawks from aiding and abetting jihad in neighbouring countries and elsewhere. Thus, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog refused to remove Pakistan from its grey watchlist because the country had not been vigorous enough in the prosecution of United Nations-designated terrorists.

Greylisting carries no legal sanctions but restricts a country’s access to international loans. A top Pakistan official estimated that the greylisting cost his country’s economy $10 billion annually.

The meddling of the spy agency in politics, civil administration, and the judiciary has gone so far that Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, a senior sitting judge of Islamabad High Court, was sacked within three months of having spilled the beans. He admitted that the “Judiciary [in Pakistan] is not independent … the ISI forms benches of its choice to get desired results.”

A Supreme Court judgment two years ago by Justice Qazi Faez Isa reminded that: “The Constitution emphatically prohibits members of the armed forces from engaging in any kind of political activity, which includes supporting a political party, faction, or individual.”

On the other hand, the cash crunch is pushing Pakistan on the verge of a failed state. Independent think tanks have warned that Pakistan will turn into a pariah state if the interference of the military hawks continues.

To salvage the nation from an economic crisis during the coronavirus pandemic, Khan has had to reach out to his all-weather friend China to repay the second instalment of $1 billion out of the $3 billion owed to Saudi Arabia.

Khan is widely dubbed as a populist and appears to reinforce a widespread traditionalist attitude that rejects religious tolerance, as well as the rights of women and ethnic minorities.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 13 July 2021

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

ULFA: A tale of militancy and impunity

Elusive ULFA-I leader Paresh Baruah rejects peace talks and hiding near Myanmar-China border

A timeline of the United Liberation Front of Assam’s activities in Bangladesh during the Khaleda Zia regime

SALEEM SAMAD

There was uproar among the political and diplomatic circles in Bangladesh, India, as well as Britain after declassified documents said that a British diplomat in Dhaka had met with North East Indian secessionist leaders of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) 30 years ago.

The secret parley with British High Commissioner David Austin took place on October 2, 1990, with three top ULFA functionaries -- Anup Chetia (real name Golap Barua), Siddhartha Phukan (Sunil Nath), and Iqbal (Munin Nabis).

Shortly after receiving the secret memo, the British foreign office in London cautioned its envoy in Dhaka to snap contacts with the banned outfit, which would jeopardize their historical relationship with India.

The ULFA decided to meet the envoy because the British have century-old investments in the Assam tea gardens. So they thought it would be easier to twist the arm of the UK government to help pursue their radical policy.

The declassified documents said the British diplomat was shown photographs of the outfit’s training camp in Assam, among other images and leaflets, and finally promised a tour of its militant camps. One of the photos was of the ULFA military Commander-in-Chief Paresh Baruah at the China border with a Chinese army liaison officer. Baruah is still believed to be in China.

The diplomat found the China link of the ULFA “new and interesting.” Claims of Chinese help to northeast insurgency are not new.

The meeting was presumably arranged with the British High Commission by unnamed officials of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), just two months before the demise of General HM Ershad’s dictatorial regime.

The rogue intelligence officials were able to convince the democratically elected government of Khaleda Zia to lend political support to separatist groups in the seven-sisters in North-East India.

Her party advocated anti-Indian policy, which attracted several rightist parties, and most importantly, Islamist parties.

In mid-1991, with tacit blessings of the Pakistan spy agency ISI, the separatist leaders of Assam, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Manipur opened their headquarters in Dhaka, while their foot soldiers set up camps in Bangladesh-India no-man’s-land, dotted in the northern and eastern frontiers.

In the border regions, for months and years, militants in uniform were seen buying groceries and essential commodities from village markets inside Bangladesh.

The covert operation, aided and abetted by ISI, functioned with impunity under the shadow of the Pakistan embassy in Gulshan. Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who was also the defense minister, had full knowledge of the clandestine operation.

The ULFA and other militant groups had accounts in several private banks in Dhaka, Sylhet, and Chittagong. However, those bank accounts were frozen after Sheikh Hasina returned to power in January 2009.

The militant leaders lived in spacious apartments in Uttara, Shyamoli, Mohammadpur, and Shantinagar with their families. The unmarked shelters were guarded 24/7 by armed security with walkie-talkies provided by intelligence agencies.

The elusive ULFA military chief Paresh Baruah invested millions of US dollars in real estate, shipping, textile, power, and medical care in Bangladesh, according to a classified document of National Security Intelligence (NSI).

Not surprisingly, Paresh Baruah had direct contacts with Hawa Bhaban run by Tarique Rahman, former State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar, and of course rogue intel officers, as well as ISI operatives in Dhaka.

India’s special operations unit, separately based in Guwahati, Assam and Agartala, Tripura, had made several attempts to capture the fugitive Paresh Baruah so that he could face justice in India.

ULFA’s founding member and general secretary Anup Chetia was detained by Bangladesh police on December 21, 1997, from his Shyamoli residence in Dhaka under the Foreigners Act and the Passports Act for illegally possessing foreign currencies and a satellite phone.

From his prison cell, Chetia thrice applied for political asylum in 2005, 2008, and 2011. His plea was rejected by authorities, possibly due to diplomatic pressure from New Delhi.

Sheikh Hasina, after becoming prime minister for the second time, decided not to allow foreign militants and terrorists to use Bangladesh territory against any neighbours.

Anup Chetia was released along with two other ULFA compatriots from Kashimpur High-Security Central Jail to be deported to India after 18 years.

Unfortunately, the two neighbours did not sign an extradition treaty. The North-East separatist leaders were handed over to India, including ULFA chairperson Arabinda Rajkhowa.

Presently, the deported ULFA leaders are smoking peace pipes in Delhi to end the four-decade-old militancy for a “sovereign” Assam in India.

First published on  Published in the Dhaka Tribune, 21 September 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

Sheikh Hasina deserves thanks for neutralise conflict in Assam

How Bangladesh helped Assam
SALEEM SAMAD

Early this year, New Delhi decided to withdraw the Indian Army from Assam, the neighbouring state in the northeast of India.

The conducting of a conflict assessment in the wake of a reduction in militancy in the region was the primary reason for the withdrawal of troops from Assam.

The top brasses in Indian defense were in the view that as the situation was improving in Assam, the state police should deal with it with the help of the Central Paramilitary Forces, according to The Assam Tribune.

Nearly two decades ago, the Indian army was deployed for counter-insurgency operations in Assam, in November 1990.

The dreaded militant groups National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB), United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), and other separatist armed groups were at the behest of Pakistan spy agency ISI, with their cohorts in Dhaka.

Bangladeshi territory was used by the militant leaders of ULFA, NDFB, and other insurgent groups in Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Manipur for their separatist movement.

The second-generation separatist leaders got renewed impetus in their illegal activities during the regime of Begum Khaleda Zia from 1991-1996 and again in 2001-2006. Pakistan was literally fighting a proxy war in the northeast through ISI covert operations in Dhaka.

The so-called headquarters of ULFA, NDFB, and others were dismantled, the leaders were pushed back from Bangladesh, months after Sheikh Hasina took oath in 2009. Since then, the entire gamut of militancy was physically immobilized in Bangladesh.

Thus, the cross-border terror came to a halt. The militant outfit’s bank accounts and other businesses were frozen by Bangladesh authorities. Several rogue elements in the Bangladesh government who were involved with aiding and abetting the militancy were punished and others reprimanded.

Recently, the NDFB(S) signed suspension of operations -- the ULFA remains the only major militant outfit active and the situation does not warrant deployment of the army all over the state -- the defense brass concludes.

On November 29, the Global Terrorism Index 2019 noted that Bangladesh had been the most successful South Asian country in countering terrorism. S Binodkumar Singh, Research Associate of Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi wrote: “Bangladesh had the largest improvement of any country in South Asia.”

Most of the militant leaders pushed back are presently active in negotiation for sustainable peace in the region. After being evicted from Bangladesh, the camps of the separatists moved to Myanmar. Myanmar military caused havoc on their camps recently.

The casualty from two decades of conflicts in northeast India has significantly reduced after Bangladesh had been able to neutralize the militancy and keep cross-border terror in check.

According to data from the Institute for Conflict Management, in 2000 the civilian casualty was 267, security forces 37, and extremists killed 223; while in 2019 civilian deaths dropped to one, security forces casualty to zero, and only two militants were killed.

The total deaths in 20 years comes to: 2,208 civilians, 340 security forces, and the number of separatists killed was 2,331 in 2,562 incidents of conflicts. The tripartite agreement was signed between NDFB President B Saoraigwra, the Assam government’s Ashutosh Agnihotri, and Union Home Joint Secretary (North-East) Satyendra Garg in New Delhi on January 17.

Bangladesh security forces were on high alert, and last June a team from the Bangladesh army and RAB, in a joint operation, recovered 12,000 weapons, including rocket launchers and machine guns, from the Satchari National Park.

Earlier in the year 2004, in a sensational recovery, 10 truckloads of arms and ammunition -- apparently smuggled in by ULFA’s military commander Paresh Barua from China -- were seized by the Bangladesh Army near Chittagong port.

The fugitive Paresh Barua, once a popular Assamese soccer player, was handed the death sentence by a Bangladesh court after he stood convicted in the 10-truck arms smuggling case.

Last November, a three-member pro-talk ULFA delegation -- Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, General Secretary Anup Chetia, and Foreign Secretary Sasadhar Choudhury - attended a formal discussion with interlocutor AB Mathur, a former special secretary of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) at an undisclosed location in New Delhi.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 2 March 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, and is a recipient of the Ashoka Fellow and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be followed on Twitter @saleemsamad

Who committed ethnic cleansing in Kashmir?

Kashmiris take cover as Indian security forces (unseen) fire teargas shells during clashes, after scrapping of the special constitutional status for Kashmir by the Indian government, in Srinagar, August 30, 2019. Photo: REUTERS

SALEEM SAMAD

Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan claims India's move to end the special status enjoyed by Kashmir by scrapping Article 370 was motivated by a 'Hindu supremacist version of Hitler's Lebensraum.'

For the sake of argument, if I agree to his argument, has he not been responsible for the violence which has significantly changed the Valley's demography? Pakistan has been aiding and abetting the jihadists responsible for terror in Kashmir.

Let's not forget that from the summer of 1989 until the winter of 1990, Kashmir witnessed a grotesque and bloody ethnic cleansing. Islamic militants operating in the Kashmir Valley sent a very dark, chilling message to non-Muslims in the region.

In effect, their warning said: "We order you to leave Kashmir immediately; otherwise your children will be harmed. We are not scaring you but this land is only for Muslims and is the land of Allah. Sikhs and Hindus cannot stay here. If you do not obey, we will start with your children. Zindabad Kashmir Liberation!"

SUCH sermons delivered from the pulpits, radical Islamists encouraged Muslims to take up arms and drive out the "Kafirs," the non-believers. The mosques in the Valley – roughly 1100 of them – blared their hate-filled, inflammatory speeches through their loudspeakers. "Islam is our objective, the Quran is our constitution, jihad is the way of our life," they called out.

The scary part was that they did not hesitate to issue warnings to the non-Muslims: "If you want to live in Kashmir, you must convert to Islam."

Spineless newspapers in Kashmir, published "press releases" funded by terror networks called on all Muslims to wage their Jihad against India.

On 14 April 1990, Al Safa, a local Urdu language daily, published a "press release" from Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, warning all non-Muslims to "leave Kashmir within 36 hours or face our bullets."

Hours after the deadline was over, the Jihadists launched a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing. Armed with Kalashnikov-AK47s, they patrolled the streets shouting slogans: "Oh Kafirs! Leave our Kashmir"; "From East to West, there will be an Islamic Ummah" They desecrated Hindu temples and vandalized several places of worship.

In the darkness of night, Hindu families were terrorized: men were dragged from their homes and shot dead. They were systematically targeted for their faith, which was not Islam.

The terror campaign claimed perhaps 60,000 lives, according to Amy Waldman of the New York Times.

Over half-a-million Hindu Pandits fled the Valley. This mass exodus caused a dramatic shift in Kashmir Valley's demography. Today, only a few thousand Hindus are left there.

Three Jihadi terror outfits - Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) – launched these attacks. They are Pakistan's proxies – "strategic assets," as the Pakistani military calls them. They were created, financed and trained by Pakistan's dreaded ISI.

After the expulsion of Kashmir's Pandits, the ISI operated 30 training camps in Pakistan for Kashmiri militants in 1990; by 2002, that number had ballooned to 128 camps training one thousand militants a year.

Unfortunately, the atrocities perpetrated by Pakistan backed Jihadist groups on Kashmiri pandits did not lead to global condemnation--- until many years later.

With Modi's revocation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, troll armies are drawing comparisons between Kashmir and Palestine; the world's media are busy painting a narrative presenting "blood brothers" India and Israel as "invaders," "occupiers," and "colonizers."

Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan's former Ambassador to the United States, stated that Pakistan supports terrorism.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned, "Pakistan must not provide a safe-haven for terrorists to threaten international security," as it is currently doing. Some of the world's most wanted terrorists - such as Hafiz Saeed, Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh – find a warm home in Pakistan and are consistently protected by the ISI.

Ironically, it is Imran Khan, who in a recent tweet, has expressed his concern over "impending genocide of Kashmiris" alleging that the there is an "attempt to change the demography of Kashmir through ethnic cleansing."

First published in the Bangla Tribune, 09 September 2019

Saleem Samad, is a journalist, media rights defender also recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad; Email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com

Hafiz Mohammed Syed (LeT, Pakistan) sharing the dais with Abdul Qudus Burmi (HuJI, Arakan) and other Rohingya leaders

Myanmar alleges Pakistan links to Rohingya militants ‘deep-rooted’

Saleem Samad

Myanmar for decades has been fighting a proxy war instigated by Pakistan’s dreaded military intelligence ISI, since the spy-outfit began to aid and abet Rohingya militants through neighbors.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s State Counselor, has asked to understand the complexities of the issue surrounding problems in Rakhine State, she said at the BIMSTEC meeting in Goa, India.

Referring to recent attack on Myanmar border police earlier this month, she alleged the Rohingya militants, apparently recruited and led by Islamists were trained in Pakistan.

On October 9, militants targeted three Myanmar border posts along the border with Bangladesh and killed around nine soldiers.

Days after the attack, Myanmar President Htin Kyaw in a statement blamed a little-known Rohingya militant group “Aqa Mul Mujahideen” for the border outposts attack and pointed fingers at Pakistan, which did not surprise Bangladesh or Indian security agencies.

However, both India and Bangladesh are said to be very worried over the fresh armed conflict of Rohingya militants.

Senior officials in Indian intelligence, who have closely followed the Rohingya armed militancy for decades told Mizzima, a Myanmar news agency that the Aqa Mul Mujahideen (AMM) leaders were trained in Pakistan.

Pakistan's ISI's special operations cell coordinates the activity of the different Rohingya groups, whose leadership is based in the country.

Soon after General Ziaur Rahman grabbed power after assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in August 1975, Pakistan spy agency ISI negotiated funds from Libya and Saudi Arabia to organize clandestine operations in the Rakhine State of Myanmar.

Since then ISI made significant presence in the region for covert operation in Myanmar and Northeast States of India.

In latest development, the ISI operatives recruited Rohingya youths in Rakhine State and trained them in jungle bases on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, said an official of the India security agency.

He said that AMM is a new armed group that originated from the Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami-Arakan (HUJI-A) which enjoys close relations with the Pakistan Taliban.

The HUJI-A chief is Abdus Qadoos Burmi, a Pakistani national of Rohingya origin, who is claimed to have recruited Hafiz Tohar from Maungdaw in Myanmar and arranged for his training in Pakistan.

Tohar is said to be heading the AMM and Qadoos Burmi is close to the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba/Jamaatud Dawa (LeT/JuD), headed by Hafiz Sayeed.

Mizzima news agency earlier reported the LeT-JuD presence especially that of its humanitarian front Fala-i-Insaniyat in Rohingya relief camps in Rakhine State after the 2012 riots.

Qadoos Burmi developed the HUJI-A network in Bangladesh, using the remote hill-forests on its border with Myanmar, where security patrols by Bangladesh border security forces is limited.

After training promising recruits in Pakistan, they were sent to set up recruitment and training bases on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, where the fresh Rohingya recruits were trained in combat, weapons and use of explosives.

In the last several years, Bangladesh security forces zeroed in on several clandestine militant bases, but those hideouts were found to have been abandoned, after they were tipped by sources of the combing operations.

Bangladesh security agencies said that in July 2012, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD)/Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) started the Difa-e-Musalman-e-Arakan conference in Pakistan to highlight the Rohingya cause.

"Subsequently, senior JuD operatives, Shahid Mahmood and Nadeem Awan, visited, in August 2012, Bangladesh to establish direct contacts with Rohingya elements based in camps along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border," said a top Bangladesh intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Maulana Ustad Wazeer and Fareed Faizullah, both Pakistani nationals of Rohingya origin, have been recruiting Rohingya “illegal migrants” who fled from Bangladesh to Thailand or Malaysia.

Earlier, Bangladesh authorities arrested Maulana Shabeer Ahmed, a Pakistan-based Rohingya operative in 2012 who revealed that he was coordinating with Rohingya militants in Bangladesh on behalf of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

"We cannot rule out that these Rohingya armed groups may have close links with Bangladesh's homegrown jihadis and could share hideouts, finances and sources of weapons supply," said a official of "Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime” unit.

The official who is privy to the issue, said Bangladesh and Myanmar needed to cooperate further in conflict management.

Saleem Samad is an Ashoka Fellow (USA) for trendsetting journalism, he is an awarding winning investigative reporter. Twitter @saleemsamad 

Bangladesh Arms Trafficking: Residual Networks

Veronica Khangchian

In perhaps, the single biggest arms seizure since the April 2, 2004, Chittagong arms haul case where 10 truckloads of weapons had been seized, a huge arms cache was recovered by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) of Bangladesh, over several days, from the Satchari National Park in the Chunarughat Sub-District of the Habiganj District in Bangladesh, adjoining the West Tripura District in the Indian State of Tripura. Officials disclosed that they recovered 184 rocket shells (40mm) and 153 chargers for rocket launchers abandoned inside one bunker on a hillock in the reserve forest, some 130 kilometers from the capital, Dhaka, during the raid on June 3, 2014. Another six more empty bunkers were located on the same day. On June 4, the RAB found another two bunkers and recovered 38 rocket shells, four machine guns, 95 rocket chargers, 1,300 rounds of machine gun ammunition, and over 13,000 bullets of different calibres. RAB recovered more arms and ammunition, including four machine guns in a bunker on June 8, and also found oil used for cleaning firearms. Another two empty bunkers were also located. As it resumed a search operation deep into the reserve forest on the eight consecutive day, RAB made additional recoveries, including one machine gun barrel, 633 rounds of ammunition, and 54 anti-tank shells, from three newly discovered bunkers, on June 9.

The area from where the arms were recovered was once the base camp of the now-defunct Indian insurgent outfit, the Tripura-based All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF). The camp was later captured by insurgents belonging to the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT). The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), with its principal theatre of operations in the Indian State of Assam, abutting Tripura, and ATTF had earlier smuggled a huge quantity of Chinese-made weapons from the Southeast Asian grey market by sea, landed them around Cox's Bazar or Chittagong, and transported these to rebel bases such as Satchari, from where arms were smuggled into India's troubled northeast.

However, some confusion prevails over the present recoveries. Indian security agencies are yet to ascertain whether these belong to any militant outfit active in India's Northeast. Media reports have speculated on the distant possibility of ULFA 'chief' Paresh Baruah asking ATTF to store the weapons in its one-time bases, and this cannot be ruled out. Reports also indicate that ATTF leader, Ranjit Debbarma (now in Tripura jail), who had close ties with Paresh Baruah, had stocked the cache in collaboration with ULFA militants. A June 4 media report suggested that the arms and ammunition belonged to ULFA leader Baruah. Information gleaned by Indian intelligence agencies from Debbarma, and provided to Bangladesh authorities, led to the recovery of the ammunition on June 3, three kilometers off the border. According to the report, arms smuggled from China by Baruah were kept in the Satchari Forest and were sent to Indian militants at opportune moments.

However, Bangladesh State Minister for Home, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, asserted that the haul was based on intelligence collected by local Bangladesh agencies. RAB Media Wing Director Habibur Rahman added that the arms and ammunition recovered in the Satchari Forest were apparently similar to those recovered in Chittagong in 2004, and to a truckload of ammunition recovered at Bogra in June 2003.  It is significant, moreover, that investigators of the Bogra ammunition haul had determined that the ammunition was bound for the Satchari Forest, and had also confirmed its linkages with NLFT and ULFA.

Earlier, a Bangladesh Court had arrived at a significant verdict in the Chittagong arms haul case, nearly 10 years after the incident. On January 30, 2014, a Chittagong District Court awarded the death penalty to 14 accused, including Motiur Rahman Nizami, Ameer (chief) of the Jamaat-e-Islami (Jel), Lutfozzaman Babar of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the then Minister of State for Home, and ULFA-I 'commander-in-chief' Paresh Baruah (in absentia), for smuggling 10 truckloads of arms into Chittagong District in 2004, during the tenure of the BNP-led Government. Investigations revealed that the weapons were manufactured in China and were being shipped to ULFA. The condemned also include former Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) Director Major General (Retd) Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury; former Director General of National Security Intelligence (NSI) Brigadier General (Retd) Abdur Rahim; and three other NSI officials – Director (Security) Wing Commander Shahab Uddin Ahmed; Deputy Director Major (Retd) Liakat Hossain; and Field Officer Akbar Hossain Khan. Others awarded the death penalty in the case are former Additional Secretary (Industry) Nurul Amin; the then Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Ltd. (CUFL) Managing Director Mahsin Uddin Talukder; CUFL General Manager (Administration) K.M. Enamul Hoque; and three businessmen, Hafizur Rahman Hafiz, Deen Mohammad and Haji Abdus Subhan.

In the initial stages of the trial, which commenced in 2005, only some small fry, mostly labourers, truckers and trawler drivers, were implicated, leaving out the big shots as the then BNP-led Government allegedly tried to cover up the involvement of the state machinery, including its Ministers and high officials of intelligence agencies. However, after an Army-backed caretaker Government took charge on January 11, 2007, ahead of the country’s General Elections, the Court of Chittagong Metropolitan Judge ordered further investigations on February 14, 2008. In June 2011, Muniruzzaman Chowdhury, Senior Assistant Superintendent of Criminal Investigation Department, submitted two supplementary charge-sheets, accusing 11 new suspects. While Paresh Barua and former Secretary of the Industries Ministry, Nurul Amin, have been absconding ever since the recovery of the arms, the other nine are behind bars. Baruah and Amin were sentenced in absentia. The verdict of the Special Tribunal observed that the role of the then Prime Minister Khaleda Zia in the incident was 'mysterious', and pointed to the direct involvement of then Ministers and top military and civil officials. Judge S.M. Mojibur Rahman also argued that the smuggling of such a huge volume of weapons and ammunition was not possible without Government support, and noted, “They [the intelligence officials] were involved in the conspiracy to destroy the entire nation by putting the country’s existence at stake.”

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed has now promised separate investigations into the role of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and her party (BNP) in the Chittagong arms haul case, declaring, ‘The trial of 10 truckloads of arms haul is over. We will now probe afresh the conspiracies behind it, from where the arms came, how it was brought to Bangladesh and who had funded it." The Prime Minister added that Bangladesh had become hotbed of activities of the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in August 1975.

Analysts note that the death sentence awarded to Paresh Barua will have little impact on the outfit as Barua and most of his cadres have already shifted base out of Bangladesh. Intelligence officials in Assam, however, feel that the elusive insurgent leader will be under greater pressure to come forward for talks, should Myanmar act as Bangladesh did, and evict insurgents from India's north-east, including Barua and his cadres, from its soil. The Assam Police have intelligence inputs that Barua is currently operating out of his base along the Myanmar-China border. Officials in Bangladesh argue that the death sentence would at least ensure that Baruah would not be able to enter Bangladesh without the court’s intervention.

Significantly, the verdict comes at a time when ULFA-I is facing a crisis. Sources indicate that not more than 10 hardcore members of the outfit are inside Assam, and that the group has no more than 180 cadres in camps in Myanmar. Senior leaders who were in the Mon District of Nagaland have been called back to Myanmar after the outfit awarded the death sentence to 'operational commander' Pramod Gogoi alias Partha Pratim Asom. On March 16, 2014 [the party's 'Army Day'], ULFA-I asked its members to re-strengthen the outfit, fearing that certain members had a nexus with the SFs. At least eight ULFA-I cadres, including Pramod Gogoi, were executed on the instructions of ULFA-I's 'commander-in-chief', Paresh Baruah, for 'conspiring’ with Police and Security Forces to engineer a mass surrender of cadres over the preceding four months. Seven cadres had also been executed in December 2013, while they were trying to flee the Myanmar base to surrender to the Police. 'Operational commander' Pramod Gogoi was executed on January 15, 2014 in the Mon District. ULFA-I is said to have a total of around 240 cadres at present.

Significantly, the Goalpara Police recovered a stock of ammunition and detonators from ULFA-I along the Assam-Meghalaya border in the Goalpara District on January 27, 2014. The Police disclosed that a group of ULFA-I militants had entered Hatigaon, a village under the Agia Police Station, with arms and explosive materials, which they stored inside a rubber plantation. Goalpara Superintendent of Police (SP) Nitul Gogoi stated, “We got the information that a group under the leadership of Drishti Rajkhowa brought the ammunition from Bangladesh.”

Coordination between the Meghalaya based Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA), one of the biggest procurers of arms in Meghalaya, and ULFA-I, remains a concern. In the latest incident, on June 26, 2014, a militant identified as Dharma Kanta Rai, who was on ‘deputation’ from the ULFA-I to the GNLA, was killed during a rescue operation mounted by West Garo Hills Police at Darekgre near Rongmasugre village in West Garo Hills District, to free four abducted persons from the GNLA and ULFA. The abductions had been carried out on June 25 from Kantanagre village in West Garo Hills District. The deceased ULFA-I cadre was reportedly an improvised explosive device (IED) expert, used by GNLA to target Police movements.

Worryingly, media reports indicate that a large proportion of weapons and ammunition that reach the mushrooming in Meghalaya, are from the armory of insurgent groups presently engaged in peace parleys with the Government. These groups include the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and the pro-talks faction of ULFA (ULFA-PTF). According to sources, these frontline militant outfits never divulged the exact composition of their arsenal and, according to one source, “80 to 90 per cent of these arms lie unused for five to six years and just before their life span lapses, these militant groups prefer to dispose of these weapons.”

Further, despite dramatically improving relations between India’s Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB), Northeast insurgent groups continue to maintain some 45 hideouts in Bangladesh, mostly belonging to ATTF and NLFT (21 camps), according to BSF Special Director General B.D. Sharma. He added, on June 20, that the insurgents could not be fully wiped out from Bangladesh soil because deployment of BGB was thin compared to requirements, and that, “They are now raising new forces and we hope that the situation would improve soon. Besides, the terrain and riverine border also come in the way of maintaining effective border vigil.” However, Mohammed Latiful Haider, Additional Director General, BGB, has denied the existence of any camps of Indian militant outfits in the country. The denial came on June 25, after the first day of a border coordination conference held between senior BSF and BGB officials at Kadamtala, at BSF North Bengal Frontier Headquarters near Siliguri, under the Darjeeling District of West Bengal.

Bangladesh has now clearly declared that it would not allow its territory to be used against India. The assurance, reiterated to Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on her first foreign visit on June 26, 2014, came as the External Affairs Minister promised to put extra energy into bilateral ties. Swaraj stated that New Delhi sought a comprehensive and equitable partnership with Bangladesh for a secure and prosperous South Asia.  With recent developments, and agreed cooperation between India and Bangladesh, a further significant improvement can be hoped for.

First published South Asia Intelligence Review, Weekly Assessments & Briefings, Volume 12, No. 52, June 30, 2014

Veronica Khangchian is Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

Pakistan, time to face the truth about Bangladesh

SMITA PRAKASH

There was some buzz again last week that Dr Manmohan Singh was contemplating a visit to Pakistan next month, before he hangs his boots. It is one of those rumours which in the past nine years has been neither denied by the foreign office nor confirmed. And the ‘news’ gained ground when a visiting bunch of Pakistani journalists reported that all that was left was a fixing of dates. Meanwhile it appears that the Prime Minister might instead be traveling to Myanmar to attend the summit of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation). The interesting grouping consists of Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal. Look East Sir, look East.

Pakistan is too occupied with ‘peace talks’ with the Taliban — which it calls a stake holder in its domestic political process — to bother with the Indian Prime Minister. Try figuring this out: the Taliban has asked Imran Khan to negotiate on its behalf in the peace talks with the government!

Last week, that Pakistani ‘social worker of repute’ Hafiz Saeed, no wait, ‘Professor’ Hafiz Saeed said in a rally that India was exerting pressure on the Bangladeshi government to hang Jamaat leaders. He was referring to the death sentence handed down by a Chittagong court to 14 men, including Bangladesh Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami, in the sensational 10 truck arms smuggling case of 2004. ULFA chief Paresh Barua was also given the death penalty in absentia.

In April 2004, Bangladesh police had seized 4,930 types of sophisticated firearms, 27,020 grenades, 840 rocket launchers, 300 rockets, 2,000 grenade launchers, 6,392 magazines and 1,140,520 bullets when they were being loaded on to 10 trucks headed to North East India. Barua, then in Bangladesh, worked closely with the ISI and the BNP, especially Khaleda Zia’s son Tarique Rehman. Both Barua and Tarique fled Bangladesh when the Awami League government came to power.

The ISI has always maintained its links with the Jamaat in Bangladesh, either through Bangladesh’s National Security Intelligence during BNP rule or lately through various non-state actors. Three Myanmar born Pakistani Taliban operatives were caught in Dhaka last month on a ‘jihad mission’.

Not just the ISI, Pakistan’s politicians too are vocal in their support for trans-national jihadi terrorists. Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Chaudhary Nisar described the capital punishment to Bangladesh’s war criminal Abdul Qadir Mollah as ‘judicial murder’. Mollah, known as the ‘Butcher of Mirpur’, and his Al Badr cohorts smashed to death a two year old on the floor, slit the throats of his pregnant mother and two sisters, and raped his two other sisters, one of whom died from her wounds. The one who survived testified against Mollah. 43 years later, Mollah was convicted and hanged for killing 344 civilians in 1971. A few days later, Pakistani politician Javed Hashmi (PTI) called Mollah as Shaheed-e-Pakistan. These are the kind of men that Pakistan’s leaders call heroes.

More than four decades after losing half of its country, Pakistan has still not come to terms with the fact that Bangladesh is systematically going ahead with bringing to trial the war crimes accused of 1971. And during that process, historical facts are coming to the fore once again. Pakistanis have been fed on a diet of lies about their history and their leaders are quite content to perpetuate that state of ignorance.

The denial runs deeper as evidenced from a report in Pakistani newspaper, The Nation (Jan 24, 2014) which denounces a Bollywood film to be released this month as an Indian conspiracy to defame Pakistan rather than an artistic interpretation by a private Indian film producer. The article says, “Based on anti-Pakistan propaganda, ‘The Bastard Child’, (now renamed ‘Children of War’) a Hindi language movie, has recently been released in India to tarnish the image of Pakistan and its armed forces around the world.”

“The movie, which has been made on the subject of 1970-1971 events in East Pakistan, depicts Pakistan Army in East Pakistan as an occupation army. It screens alleged atrocities committed by Pakistan Army personnel in East Pakistan, which ignited flames for its separation… Notwithstanding, peace endeavours initiated by government of Pakistan, India does not spare any opportunity to prick Pakistan. It quotes “sources” saying “This propaganda movie is an attempt to bring bad name to Pakistan.” If the YouTube trailers of the film provoked this extreme reaction, it is quite clear that the film will be banned in Pakistan, depriving yet another generation from knowing the truth about 1971.

First published in Mid-Day, India, January 3, 2014

Smita Prakash is Editor, News at Asian News International. You can follow her on twitter @smitaprakash