Questions over Centre, state stance on border fencing

Addressing a webinar organised by a group of intellectuals close to the BJP yesterday evening to discuss "West Bengal: A Breeding Ground of Terrorism"

MANAS R BANNERJEE, SNS,  SILIGURI. 10 OCTOBER 2020 : Former Inspector General of Police Pankaj Datta has said that both the Centre and the state have no intention to complete the barbed wire fencing along the India-Bangladesh border soon to stop infiltration and other border crimes.

Addressing a webinar organised by a group of intellectuals close to the BJP yesterday evening to discuss "West Bengal: A Breeding Ground of Terrorism", Mr Datta, who was posted in Malda as the Superintendent of Police earlier, said: "There is a 2,217 km long land border with Bangladesh in West Bengal. Of that, 1,000 km is totally porous. I think the Centre does not have the goodwill to complete the fencing. I cannot understand this, it's a million-dollar question as to why Union Home Minister Amit Shah is not taking the West Bengal government into confidence to manage Iand for the construction of the barbed wire fencing in the remaining part." Significantly, another speaker, Dr Swapan Dasgupta, a Member of the Rajya Sabha, also spoke on the matter in connection with Bangladesh, where Islamic fundamentalists are active to increase strategic weight in Bengal politically Ire cited examples of violence during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAM).

Dr Dasgupta also said that infiltration is a serious problem and that it is high time that a rethinking is done and people made aware of it. "But a unique problem is the Centre-state relationship," he said.

"In order to maintain the national interests when both the Centre and the state should go in the same rhythm, the state, to earn electoral and political dividends, temporarily goes against the Centre's decisions," Dr Dasgupta said.

Significantly; Mr Datta echoed Dr Dasgupta's views on rethinking about the present situation and claimed that West Bengal, the land of Sri Chaitanya and Sri Ram krishna, can never become a breeding ground of terrorism and that people will have to rethink on it. These views came even as other speakers discussed a "conspiracy to create a greater Islamic Bangladesh, comprising West Bengal."

On the other hand, former Superintendent of Police, Bharati Ghosh, who contested the Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket, said militancy was being reared politically with the help of the police.

Another speaker, Dr Pankaj Roy, principal of a Kolkata-based degree college, pointed out how ruling parties were league with them to bag 125 Assembly seats, where people belonging to the minority community played a decisive role in West Bengal.

Notably, Dr Dasgupta claimed that the present trend is that people belonging to the Muslim community wanted to play a decisive role in politics in Bengal.

Mr Datta described how American expansionism was responsible for Muslim fundamentalism and terrorism and the role of the Taliban during the Cold War between America and Russia, and finally "the elimination of Barkati, and especially Osama Bin Laden, has encouraged Jihadi in the name of religious fundamentalism, which is dangerous than an atom bomb, while the ISIS has also been working."

"The interesting matter is that as Article 370 has been abrogated in the J&K under the leadership of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, Muslims globally think that both Modi and Shah are a great threat to them.They even think India is the epicenter of anti-Musim Hindu fundamentalism,," former IGP Mr Datta said. "When former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi beat Pakistan, extending help to Bangladesh during the Liberation War, it was decided in Pakistan "Bleed India with a Thousand Cuts, a military doctrine.'" he added.