The banned Islamist outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) was planning to assassinate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Khaleda Zia, according to an Indian intelligence report which is to be sent to Bangladesh soon.
The JMB had turned West Bengal into a ‘safe base area’, from where it was preparing to launch a major violent campaign to destabilise Bangladesh.
This is what the Indian home ministry is going to inform the Bangladesh authorities in a detailed report soon, one that will contain details of the 58 terror modules that have been unearthed in West Bengal state by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) after the October 2 Burdwan blasts.
The report will provide leads pointing to JMB plans to kill Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and BNP chief and former PM Khaleda Zia simultaneously and throw the country in total chaos.
The Indian home ministry is now in the last stages of collating the ‘very detailed inputs’ it has got from the NIA, the external intelligence agency RAW and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), security sources in Dhaka said.
“This is taking us some time because every day there is something new coming out and we feel that also should be included in the inputs we will give to Bangladesh; because all these inputs are as important for them as for us. In fact, they should be more worried with what we have got so far,” said a senior Indian home ministry official.
India’s National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, accompanied by National Security Guards chief JN Chaudhury and IB chief Syed Asif Ibrahim will arrive in Kolkata today to have detailed discussion with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her officials as well speak to regional chiefs of various agencies for better co-ordination of the Burdwan blast investigations.
The state government has initially resisted NIA involvement in the Burdwan investigations, raising the federal issue that law and order is a state subject in the Indian constitution.
“But this is not a law and order issue anymore. It is not that a few political activists were making a few country-made bombs to attack political rivals. This is a national security issue and also a huge issue for our friendly neighbour Bangladesh.
“We need to take the state government on board and explain to them the seriousness of the plot we have uncovered,” the home ministry official said.
He said Doval, who is former IB chief and one of the legends of Indian intelligence, will do ‘some hard talking’.
“Doval is a no-nonsense operations man. He would like total co-operation from West Bengal to crush the terror modules and not allow them any room for manoeuvre,” said the home
ministry official.
“He is also keen to pass on every single lead in as much detail as possible to Bangladesh agencies so that they can go on an all-out crackdown. This is a plot to throw Bangladesh in chaos and create large swathes of territory where administration will collapse and Islamist
radicals will take over.”
He said the ISI is clearly found involved in helping the JMB develop these terror modules in close co-ordination with Indian Mujahideen and other Kashmiri radicals.
Apparently, the NIA and the RAW, who now have huge cyber intelligence capabilities, have followed the leads from Burdwan blasts and found ‘very disturbing trends’.
“Huge number of calls seems to have taken place between JMB leaders and Al Jihad leaders in Pakistan’s NWFP. The Al Jihad is an Al Qaeda outfit.”
He said Bangladesh and our agencies must give high priority to nabbing JMB militant Bilal. “He is the kingpin of this
massive destabilisation plot.”
The Indian home ministry official said the ISI was running this entire plot from its covert operation centre in Dubai to destabilise Bangladesh and pave the way for creation of ‘liberated zones run by Islamist radicals’.
“The final objective is to install a Taliban type order in Bangladesh from where India can be attacked in a covert warfare mode.”
