2005 intel revealed Bangladesh radicals’ plan for India: Wikileaks

GUWAHATI: The Indian government had intelligence inputs way back in 2005 about radicals from Bangladesh infiltrating into the country with a strategic, long-term plans to provide support to various insurgent groups like the Ulfa and making West Bengal as the launching pad to spread their operations, Wikileaks has revealed.

The released cables, which originated from Kolkata on Deecmber 16, 2005, contain only part of the original cable. It states, "The (Indian) authorities are concerned that these elements (radical Islamists) have a strategic, long-term plans to take advantage of the porous border to infiltrate India and provide support to insurgent groups."

The cable quoting a former deputy director of RAW and former senior police officials of West Bengal said the police had information from unnamed sources that weapons for use by Ulfa were brought in through the Bangladesh-India border. "Once inside India, radicals are able to gain influence in border communities, provide support to insurgent movements and use West Bengal as a launching pad to move within India or to travel internationally."

The Wikileaks cable state, "The three terrorist organizations of primary interest to Indian authorities monitoring the border are Jamat-ul-Mujahideen (JUM) ( now JMB) , Jagrata Muslim Janata, Bangladesh (JMJB) and Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (Huji). The contacts said, without identifying the groups, that terrorist organizations previously based in Afghanistan have moved their operations to Bangladesh where there is less international focus on the fundamentalist Islamic community."

The cable further states that "fundamentalist intolerance is of particular concern to BSF authorities, who believe radical elements are using the madrassas to recruit young men."

The cable states that "Since 2001, Indian authorities have seen changes in the community near the border suggesting that radical Islamic elements enjoy increasing influence in the area. For example, authorities noted what they describe as a 'mushrooming' of madrassas on both the Indian and Bangladeshi side of the border. The majority of these madrassas are not government regulated and they believe the schools are predominantly being used as recruitment facilities."

The cable reported that one of the Indian government representatives speculated that the Bangladeshi intelligence apparatus, under the influence of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence was providing funding from petro-dollars and narco funds, although he had no concrete evidence. He said that a group calling itself the Revival of Islamic Heritage (RIH) was also providing funding but did not elaborate on the source of his information.