Terror stalks, from Hills to Plains... GJM man set up a chain to smuggle arms from N-E

HT, DARJEELING: Sanjay Rai, a leader of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s (GJM) youth wing, had set up a regular supply chain for not only one, but multiple consignments of sophisticated arms and ammunition from the NorthEast to Darjeeling. Rai himself visited Nagaland to seal the deal.
On Saturday, the Assam police recovered sophisticated arms and ammunition from a vehicle that was on its way to Darjeeling. Ganesh Chettri (53), resident of Baksa district of Assam, and Umesh Kami (29) of Lankapara, hailing from Alipurduar in Bengal, were caught with the consignment.
The arms haul included a M-16 rifle, Beretta pistols, .32 pistols, hundreds of rounds of ammunition for 9 mm pistols, AK series assault rifles and other weapons. The vehicle bearing a West Bengal registration plate (WB74A 4788) was travelling from Dimapur in Nagaland to Darjeeling.
A greatly embarrassed GJM leadership quickly set up a probe committee to find out more about the arms recovery and links with the organisation. Sanjay Rai, the main accused, is also a Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) member and police say he had planned to bring in two to three more consignments of arms and ammunitions to the hills. Rai is absconding.
“We have inputs from our counterparts in Assam that the consignment was to be delivered to Sanjay Rai. There are others involved along with him also. After Rai is nabbed the entire picture will be clear. The fact that Rai is absconding proves his involvement. We are getting constant inputs from Assam which we are investigating and corroborating,” said Akhilesh Chaturvedi, the Darjeeling police chief.
Intelligence sources told HT that Rai had bought the Tata Safari (WB74A4788) for R14 lakh in one Kami’s name. Kami, a Gorkhaland Personnel — a voluntary police force affiliated to the GJM — had got acquainted with Rai in 2012.
Rai had personally visited Nagaland and procured the consignment for R15 lakh. The duo had modified the Tata Safari in Nagaland to hide the arms in a secret compartment. Rai had apparently promised Kami R50,000 per consignment delivered.
Meanwhile, the GJM central committee, head by party chief Bimal Gurung, met in Darjeeling on Wednesday to take stock of the developments, especially since one of its members was involved in the arms smuggling. Emerging from the hour-long meeting, GJM general-secretary Roshan Giri told reporters, “We have formed a five-member committee to independently probe the case.”
Giri added, “Since the formation of the GJM in 2007 we have been propagating the Gandhian principal of non-violence. Our agitation for Gorkhaland has been non-violent and will continue to be so. We want peace in the Hills.” M ahmudul Haque Munsi, a youth from Dhaka, became a hero among Bangladesh’s pro-liberation war activists – almost overnight – after he threw a shoe at the vehicle carrying the body of Golam Azam, a war crime convict and top Jamaat-e-Islami leader in Bangladesh. This act clearly reflected the desperation of the secular Muslims who are fighting a do-or-die battle against the Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists.
In November, a month after the Burdwan blast, Munsi, one of the key organisers of the Shahbag movement, sounded a warning for the Bengalis living in Bengal.
“It needs to be investigated whether the Jamaat camp, supported by the ISI, is expanding their base to Bengal or its members are being sheltered by the state’s politicians having fundamentalists leanings. Terrorists think Bengal is a safer place for them than Bangladesh. Any fundamentalist group is a threat to the Bengalis,” Munsi told HT.
But he is not alone in his fight against the fundamentalists in Bangladesh who have raised an alarm bell for the people of Bengal. On September 20, two weeks before the Burdwan blast, Bangladesh information minister Hasanul Haque Inu said in Dhaka that the Trinamool Congress’s alleged links with the Jamaat-e-Islami was a cause of concern for India’s eastern neighbour. He was commenting in the context of the apprehension that the Saradha chit fund scam’s money might have reached Jamaat activists in Bangladesh through a TMC member of the Rajya Sabha. The Burdwan blast and the subsequent unearthing of Bangladesh’s terror network activities in Bengal – and particularly the report thathat terrorists based in the Bengal town were plottingg to kill Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina – have multiplied the neighbouring country’s fearr that the Indian state has become a hideout of Bangladesh-based terrorr operatives.
Reports of al-Qaeda’s call forr establishing base in India, espe-ecially in Bengal, Assam, Jharkhandnd and Manipur to execute its plan for forming the Islamic Caliphate of Bangladesh have raised security con-oncerns in India.
“Fundamentalism does not matchatch the temperament of the Bengalis.alis. People living in both the countriesries must treat the threat from jihadistsdists seriously and fight it with all theirheir might,” Inu said.
The Bengalis in Bengal, however,ever, never took the battle against fundamen-amen- ism seriously. When 16 Islamic organisations held a mass rally in Kolkata in April last year to garner support for the Jamaat-e- Islami leaders who have been convicted for war crimes in Bangladesh, all political parties in the state, including the CPI(M), the Trinamool Congress and the Congress stood as silent spectators.
The fundamentalist elements made a silent inroad in the state and made it into a breedingedg ggroundoud despdespitete being on the radar of the National Investigating Agency (NIA) and other intelligencence agen-agencies. Terrorists found a safe havenn ininthethe state and a ground for plotting terrorrror strikes outside. These terrorists alsolso smuggled explosives and otherer logistical materials from the statete to other locations.
But the Burdwan blast hass become an eye-opener for all.l What was a mere apprehension turned true as investigations gath-thered momentum. The indoctrinationtion of radical Islamic ideology and arms training imparted to youths and women in some madrasas of the state haveave become the new political issue in Bengal, especially with the BJP and various outfits affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), stepping up tirade against the Trinamool Congress, blaming it for its ‘minorityappeasement.’
“In Bangladesh, the seculars and moderates have joined hands against the Islamic fundamentalists. Here, the right-wing Hindu forces are trying to gain footprints by citing Mulim fundamentalism,” CPI(M) central committee members and former Bengal minister, Mohammad Salim, said.
Incidentally, about six-months ago, Salim, one of the key Muslim faces of the CPI(M), had blamed the Trinamool government’s policy of harbouring Muslim fundamentalists for the rise of the BJP.
The ‘right-wing Hindu forces’, the RSS and the BJP, however, blame both the then CPI(M)led Left Front government and the TMC government for sheltering Muslim fundamentalists and letting their networks grow in the state. Their concern stems from the fact that an increasing number of impressionable youths are being imparted trainings in arm production and explosive making in madrasas to carry out explosions in specific targets across the state.
“The Left Front government practiced soft-communalism for 34 years and the Mamata Banerjee took it to a different dimension altogether. Now, the people of Bengal needs to think whether they should allow Bengal to turn into a hub of the Islamic terrorists,” Jishnu Basu, spokesperson of the RSS south Bengal chapter, said.
Various outfits affiliated to the RSS such as the Hindu Samhati, Hindu Jagaran Mancha and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad have stepped up campaign against madrasa education, which they consider as ‘breeding grounds of Islamic terror’.
Amal Mukhopadhyay, ex-principal of Presidency College, too, blamed the secular camps for the rise of fundamentalism in the state. “The so-called secular parties in Bengal never bothered about the growth of Islamic fundamentalism because they always used the Muslims as vote banks. They never felt the need to fight the terror seriousl either. The Hindu outfits are now raising the concern due to threat from Islamic fundamentalists,” Mukhopadhyay said.
He added that while Bangladesh’s socio-political consciousness against fundamentalism has its roots in the very creation of the country, politicians in Bengal never considered religious fundamentalism as an issue here.
Investigations reveled that Bangladesh-based outfits likelike Ansarullah Bangla Team and BabBab-UlUl-Islam forum are regularly translating al-Qaeda literature into Bengali, targeting the Bengali Muslim population living in BangladeshBangladesh, West BengalBengal, Assam and JharkhandJharkhand. The administration in both the countries have agreed to share information on the activities of the common enemy. “We were late to act. But now, we have realised the gravity of the threat. Our urgency to crackdown on anti-national elements arises since the terrorists’ plan involves wreaking havoc in locations across both the countries. The intelligence and security agencies, too, need to chalk out an integrated plan to tactacklee teterror,”o, a Kolkata-based intelligence officer said. HoweverHowever, the political equations continue to be complecomplex. While the CPI(M) has finally started talkitalking about the threat Bengal faces from funfundamentalism, TMC is yet to consider it as an issue. The CM Mamata Banerjee hhas criticised the BJP and the RSS for trying to provoke communal tension but she remained tightlipped on jihadi activities in state.
“We are not.bothered about Muslim vvotes. Then by-poll in Basirhat has clearlyly indicated that the Muslim votes are gogoing in bulk to Trinamool Congress. Even the CPI(M)’s share of Muslim votes are goigoing to the Trinamool. All we want is to consoliconsolidate the Hindu votes,” a senior RSS pracharak saidsaid. While Bengal is yet to fully realize the threat from Islamic terror, Bangladesh has awakened to the fact much early.
Shahriar Kabir, an intellectual from Bangladesh, however, was quick to draw peoples’ attention towards the threat. He raised the issue during his several visits to Kolkata. His speech was virtually interrupted by a section of the audience in a programme here a few months ago when he tried to make the people of Bengal aware of the threat of Muslim fundamentalism. The agitators alleged that Kabir was trying to strengthen the hands of rightwing Hindu outfits.
An aggrieved Kabir had later told HT, “ProPro-Jamaat peoppeople are turning Kolkata into ttheir den.”
WWhether these words of ccaution from intellectualtuals from Bangladesh wilwill have any effect on the people of Bengal remremains to be seen, bubut Bengalis living in Bangladesh are kekeen to get suppoport from their linlinguistic brethreren in Bengal iin their fight aagainst religgious fundamentalism.
“Crossborderborder terro is a conspiracy, hatchehatched by the ISI, terrorist outfits in AAfghanistan and West AsiaAsia. BenBengal government needs to be cautious about this threat,” Inu said.
While the Bengalis here are yet to decide on putting up resistance against Islamic terror in an orchestrated manner, brave face in like Mahmudul Haque Munsi, however, remains undaunted in the face of threat from fundamentalists in his own country.
He has been receiving threats from radicals right from the beginning of the Shahbag movement. But Munsi considers the fight against fundamentalism and terror as a do-or-die battle for a generation of Bangladeshi youths, who believe in the secular credentials like him. Bangladesh, after all, is standing at the crossroads, with the country vertically split in two camps – the secular-moderate camp and the fundamentalist camp.
The bright spot for the neighbouring country is ever willingness of its mass to crush fundamentalism, whereas it remains to be seen how people of Bengal resist terror and the government tightens its security apparatus to effectively tackle Islamic terror.