NSA Ajit Doval skipped Dhaka trip to plan Myanmar Operation

NEW DELHI: At virtually the last minute, National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval dropped out of PM Narendra Modi's visit to Bangladesh over the weekend, because he had hot-footed it to Manipur after the June 4 attack on the Army convoy in Nagaland. He was a prominent absentee, particularly as the Dhaka visit had a strong security component.

Doval, the quintessential ops man, spent the past few days camped in Manipur overseeing the intelligence collection and coordinating actions of the intelligence agencies and the armed forces that resulted in one of the rare operations by the Indian Army to raid militants across the border in Myanmar.

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Over a week ago, foreign secretary S Jaishankar paid a quiet visit to Myanmar, whose details have not been divulged.While the Myanmar government is believed to have stayed quiet throughout Tuesday's operation, the Indians have been tracking increased militant activity from within Myanmar.

In April-May 1995, ' Operation Golden Bird' was launched as an India-Myanmar joint operation which killed almost 40 militants. Since then, the two countries have been working together against northeastern militants -in 2001, the Myanmar army was reported to have wiped out some bases of miitants from Manipur.

India has been concerned about China working to consolidate disparate militant groups to work against Indian interests. In recent weeks, there were reports that Paresh Baruah's ULFA and NSCN (K) has joined hands with seven other militant organizations to form the United National Liberation Front of Western South-East Asia.

The June 4 attack on Indian forces saw militants using advanced weaponry that the Indians were convinced came from outside agencies.