Homeland Security

Implications of Terror Strike in Dhaka
Star Rating Loader Please wait...
Issue Vol. 31.4 Oct-Dec 2016 | Date : 13 Dec , 2016

The political leadership in the border state of West Bengal has to realise that vote bank politics to encourage Bangladeshi migrants has already threatened national security interests. Diplomatically, India needs to ensure a New Delhi-friendly government in Dhaka. New Delhi has obtained considerable cooperation from Dhaka to tackle terrorism. Therefore, any unpleasant decision on illegal migrants has the potential to give the opposition BNP a handle to whip the ruling Awami League. This would adversely impact the Awami League’s electoral prospects and provide scope to vote the BNP to power – something that Delhi would never desire. Given these realities and complexities, India has to ensure strong border management to cope with the constant challenge of illegal migration from Bangladesh.

The terrorist strike in Dhaka on the night of July 01, 2016, when five militants killed several hostages at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan Thana – a locality in the diplomatic enclave, sent tremors across South Asia. While the Islamic State (IS) may have claimed credit for the deadly terror attack, it appears that a home-grown terrorist group, Jama’at-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) is actually the real force behind the episode.1 Bangladesh Police Chief AKM Shahidul Haque believes the involvement of the banned militant group JMB in the killings. Inspector General of Police Shahidul Haque expressed the possibility of a link between international terror groups such as the IS and the JMB. Clearly, the IS would not be able to operate on the ground without local support from the JMB.

The latest JMB slogan – “Jihad from Bangladesh to Baghdad” suggests the group has links with the IS.2 The nature of the cooperative relationship between the two terrorist groups includes training, recruitment, funding, information sharing, arms, operational assistance, manpower and logistics.3 The JMB’s funding is traced to NGOs based in West Asia and Europe which implies that their sponsors also involve a section of Bangladeshi diaspora. To that extent, the Dhaka terror attack is reminiscent of the 1972 Black September killings in Munich when a PLO guerrilla faction hit the Israeli athletic team with local support from the Left Wing German terrorist group, the Red Army Faction.4

The JMB, which means ‘Assembly of Holy Warriors in Bangladesh’, is a Bangladesh-based terror outfit…

Also, the JMB’s linkage with terror groups in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere, is based on an anti-India, anti-democratic and pro-Salafist ideology. The JMB finds it difficult to operate in India without the assistance of Indian militant groups. Some known collaborators are the Indian Mujahideen, Al Jihad, Al Ummah and the Students Islamic Movement of India. In Pakistan, the JMB has linkages with Lashkar-e-Toiba and Harkat-ul Jihad-al Islami, besides the Taliban and Al Qaida in Afghanistan. For its operations in Myanmar, the JMB relies on Rohingya Solidarity Organisation, based in Rohingya refugee camps in Southern Bangladesh.5

Given the scale of illegal migration into India, terrorism in Bangladesh has a strong bearing on India’s security interests. The fact that the Government of India sounded a high alert along the Indo-Bangla border across the five states of West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam and Mizoram after the terrorists struck in Dhaka on July 01, 2016, only highlights the nature of the trans-border threat to our country.6 The 2014 Burdwan blast and the arrest of Bangladeshi nationals from across the state had highlighted the infiltration issue from Bangladesh. However, narrow vote bank politics overrides national security interest which has enabled the illegal trans-border movement of people into India.

While any infiltration from Pakistan becomes a sensitive issue, especially because of the terrorism factor, a similar influx of people from Bangladesh does not appear to merit equal concern. The Bangladeshis who enter India illegally, could be placed in four categories namely, Bengali Hindus for fear of religious persecution, economic migrants in search of work, environmental refugees whose agricultural land has been rendered uncultivable due to water-logging and cattle smugglers who transport cattle for sale/export. Apart from these, members of militant groups are also able to enter India masquerading as any of these four categories and thereby pose a direct threat to India’s security interests.

Prakash Nanda writes, “Pakistan has used its ‘agents’ in the guise of immigrants to exacerbate the communal disharmony between the Hindus and Muslims in some parts of the country and promote secessionist – terrorist activities.”7 State Bharatiya Janata Party President Rahul Sinha stated, “The remarkable increase in infiltration figures through Bengal is attributable to two reasons. One, the Chief Minister is openly supporting Bangladeshi infiltrators. Two, she is indulging in vote bank politics that Narendra Modi also accused her of during the Lok Sabha election campaign.”8

A weak pro-Islamist regime in Bangladesh is not in India’s interests…

In April 2000, former Chief of Army Staff and a member of Rajya Sabha, General Shankar Roy Chowdhury stated in the Rajya Sabha that the Bangladesh demographic border intruded upon India’s political border over a stretch 10-20 km deep area inside West Bengal. He highlighted that Bangladesh was a base of operations for the ISI and therefore, the issue of illegal migration amounted to a demographic-cum-security threat to the country.9

The number of people from Bangladesh who infiltrated into West Bengal has increased five-fold between 2011 and 2013 and coincides with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s tenure in office. In 2011, the security forces apprehended 577 persons who crossed the border into West Bengal illegally but in 2013, the figure increased almost five times to 2,815.10 India and Bangladesh share a 4,096-km long international border, which is the fifth-longest land border globally. It comprises 2,979 km of land border and 1,116 km of riverine border between the two nations. While West Bengal shares the longest border which runs to 2,217 km, the length of the border with the other four states are – Tripura is 856 km, Meghalaya for 443 km, Assam 262 km and Mizoram 180 km. Meghalaya has over 100 “gaps” consisting of streams, rivers and drains apart from the unfenced 90-km stretch along its 443-km border with Bangladesh. The border zig-zags across hilly terrain and riparian country which facilitates cover for smuggling people, goods and livestock. It is a border nearly impossible to patrol or control.

Given the scale of illegal migration into India, terrorism in Bangladesh has a strong bearing on India’s security interests…

The JMB, which means ‘Assembly of Holy Warriors in Bangladesh’, is a Bangladesh-based terror outfit. Formed in 1998, its principal objective is to establish a Sharia-based Islamic state in Bangladesh. The JMB’s Salafist-orientation, makes it oppose modern principles of governance such as democracy, liberalism, socialism and secularism as “anti-Islamic”. Initially, the JMB obtained funds through robberies, smuggling, donations, patronage, subscriptions and extortions. Thereafter, the terrorist group turned to more lucrative foreign sources and counterfeit currency.

Religious extremism in Bangladesh was first associated with the militant group named the Hakrat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) formed in 1992 by Bangladeshi mujahideen or religious warriors battle hardened in the Afghani Jihad against the Soviet military.11 These mujahideen were part of other Muslim groups from West Asia under the leadership of the late Osama bin Laden. The US State Department had classified the HuJI as a terrorist organisation in May 2002 for its links with other global terrorist groups.12 However, the Khaleda-led BNP-Jamaat coalition government initially denied the HuJI’s existence in Bangladesh till August 2005, and relented only thereafter owing to pressure from the international community.

On August 21, 2004, the HuJI violently attacked a public meeting of the Awami League Opposition leader Sheikh Hasina, now the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, with grenades and 22 people were killed. Their out-of-country track record includes the 2002 terror strike on the American Centre at Kolkata, besides a series of bomb blasts in 1999 in Assam. Indian security services also allege that the December 1999 Indian Airlines IC-814 flight hijacked from Kathmandu had HuJI links.13 Otherwise, the world became aware of radical Islamic groups in Bangladesh only in 1994, when controversial feminist writer Taslima Nasreen was decreed with a ‘fatwa’ against her writings.14 These radical groups announced a $5,000 bounty on her head and she had to flee Bangladesh in 1994, and seek asylum elsewhere.

The number of people from Bangladesh who infiltrated into West Bengal has increased five-fold between 2011 and 2013…

Pragati Chakma states with reference to Bangladesh, “The country’s two most dominant political parties, the Awami League and the BNP, both try to woo the religion-based political parties mainly the Jamaat-e-Islami, which is committed to the formation of an Islamic State in Bangladesh, during general elections as seen in the past in 1991, 1996 and 2001. Thus, along with the Jamaat-e-Islami, which was banned from politics from 1971 to 1979, many hardline Islamic political parties joined politics in Bangladesh and political Islam thus morphed into radical Islam.”15

The then Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jama’at-e-Islami alliance regime’s political patronage nurtured the JMB’s phenomenal growth and influence. Evidently, the government did not realise the gravity of JMB’s designs until the terror group triggered 500 country-wide serial bombings across 63 of the country’s 64 districts in August 2005 within a 30-minute time span.

In the ensuing crackdown, many JMB leaders and cadres were arrested or killed, especially by the Bangladesh counter-terrorism force designated Rapid Action Battalion. Soon after, the JMB shifted some of its operations to India. The mastermind, Abdur Rahman (alias Shahadat), who sneaked into India in 2006, was instrumental in building the outfit’s network across the 4,000-km India-Bangladesh border. Around the same time, the operational wing of JMB in West Bengal was declared the “65th Unit”.16 The JMB was known to operate a bomb-making unit in Burdwan in which grenades were also manufactured and transported to Bangladesh in consignments.17 The fact that the bomb blasts at Chennai and Patna in May 2014 had JMB signatures, suggests that these Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) might have been diverted from West Bengal to other parts of India as well.18

A Bangladesh-based terror group in India acting against both Indian and Bangladeshi interests is a serious development…

Today, the JMB uses Indian territory not just for sanctuary, but also for recruitment through madrasas, mosques and social media.19 The JMB’s network is especially active in districts of Murshidabad, Malda and Nadia of West Bengal and in parts of Muslim-majority districts of Assam. These areas are closer to the JMB’s stronghold of Northern and North-Western Bangladesh. Also, the JMB’s traditional strategy is to create a network of matrimonial alliances across the border to help in easy establishment of bases in India.20 The cell phone records and visits of those arrested JMB members suggest the group has footprints in Southern India,21 besides Jammu and Kashmir. It is estimated that about 50 modules operate across India.22

Till now, terror groups in Bangladesh always had an anti-India orientation. However, a Bangladesh-based terror group in India acting against both Indian and Bangladeshi interests is a serious development. What is of utmost concern is how the activities of JMB in India have gone unnoticed for over half a decade. It would have remained so for long had the Burdwan blasts at Khagragarh not accidentally taken place. Clearly vote bank and communal politics, lack of state police capabilities, poor centre – state coordination, besides weak India-Bangladesh security cooperation, enabled the JMB to lie low. Now New Delhi and Dhaka need to urgently address these issues.

If India guards its border with Bangladesh effectively, it will help to curtail the JMB’s cross-border activities. Also, India should strengthen Bangladesh’s counter-terrorism capabilities to deal with radical groups. The present dispensation in Dhaka has helped to stymie terror groups from India’s Northeast which sought shelter in Bangladesh. Therefore, a weak pro-Islamist regime in Bangladesh is not in India’s interests. Clearly, robust Indo-Bangladesh counter-terrorism cooperation is imperative to tackle a common threat like the JMB.

Tentative Observations

http://www.lancerpublishers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1573

Click to Buy: IDR Oct-Dec 2016

Today, it is estimated that around four crore people23 from Bangladesh have illegally migrated into West Bengal and then re-located to elsewhere in India. Given the scarcity of unskilled labour across the country, these people have been welcomed to work in the coffee plantations of Karnataka to the brick kilns in West Bengal and as domestic help in New Delhi. For India, the challenge of the demographic-cum-security threat from Bangladesh is complex because it involves an element of Centre-State relations, West Bengal’s vote-bank politics and implications for India-Bangladesh relations.

Constitutionally, the Centre has the right to exercise its power over the 29 States in an externally fostered internal security threat of this nature. The political leadership in the border state of West Bengal has to realise that vote bank politics to encourage Bangladeshi migrants has already threatened national security interests. Diplomatically, India needs to ensure a New Delhi-friendly government in Dhaka. New Delhi has obtained considerable cooperation from Dhaka to tackle terrorism. Therefore, any unpleasant decision on illegal migrants has the potential to give the opposition BNP a handle to whip the ruling Awami League. This would adversely impact the Awami League’s electoral prospects and provide scope to vote the BNP to power – something that Delhi would never desire. Given these realities and complexities, India has to ensure strong border management to cope with the constant challenge of illegal migration from Bangladesh.

Notes

1. Julfikar Ali Manik and Geeta Anand, “Revelation on Attackers shocks Bangladesh,” Deccan Herald, 05 July 2016.

2. Arup Chanda, Yatish Yadav and Prasanta Mazumdar, “Bengal Madrasas: Fearsome Gardens of Terror Plots,” The New Indian Express, 19 October 2014.

3. Arshad Ali, “Terrorist arrested at Bardhaman station has links to IS: West Bengal CID,” The Indian Express, 6 July 2016.

4. “Collaboration between Terrorists,” in International Encyclopaedia of Terrorism (London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997), p. 253.

5. International Crisis Group, The Threat From Jamaat-Ul Mujahideen Bangladesh, Asia Report No. 187, 01 March 2010, p. 8.

6. “High alert on Indo-Bangla border in 5 states after Dhaka Carnage,” The Indian Express 05 July 2016.

7. Prakash Nanda, ‘Silent Invasion’, 03 May 2012 https://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/silent-invasion/; also PK Mishra,(former Additional Director General Border Security Force), Bangladesh Migrants: A Threat to India, Gyan Publishing House, New Delhi 2014.

8. Joydeep Thakur, “Infiltration’ from Bangladesh up 5 times in TMC rule,” Hindustan Times, Kolkata, 23 July 2014.

9. Jayanta Kumar Ray, Shantanu Chakrabarti and Kingshuk Chatterji, “Informal Challenges to Security and Responses,” in Jayanta Kumar Ray (ed.), Aspects of India’s International Relations 1700 to 2000: South Asia and the World, Vol. X. Part 6 (Pearson Longman, Delhi 2007). Also see Padmaja Murthy, “Managing Suspicions: Understanding India’s Relations with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka Knowledge World in association with Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, (2000). Murthy states that political, economic and social stability is necessary among India’s immediate neighbours, otherwise any instability in these countries has the potential to spill over into India. Moreover, instability in these smaller countries makes them vulnerable to external influences and pressures with an anti-India character.

10. Anish Gupta, “Bangladeshi Infiltration: The Reality Check,” The Pioneer, 27 June 2015.

11. Pragati Chakma, “The Rise of Religious Fundamentalism in Bangladesh,” February 17, 2016 http://newagebd.net/203541/the-rise-of-religious-fundamentalism-in-bangladesh, accessed on 20 July 2016.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. Mohammad Jamil Khan, “DB police aware of JMB regrouping in West Bengal,” Dhaka Tribune,
09 October 2014.

17. Deeptiman Tiwary, “Bardhaman blast accused made bombs in burqa factory,” The Times of India, 29 January 2015.

18. Dwaipayan Ghosh & Saibal Gupta, “NIA suspects link between Bardhaman, Chennai blasts,” The Times of India, 15 October 2014.

19. Sajjan M. Gohel, “Bangladesh: an Emerging Centre for Terrorism in Asia,” Perspectives on Terrorism, available at http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/348/html, accessed on 21 July 2016.

20. International Crisis Group, The Threat From Jamaat-Ul Mujahideen Bangladesh, Asia Report No. 187, 01 March 2010, p. 10.

21. The Karnataka Police in a joint operation with the Assam Police arrested Palbur Hussain, a suspected JMB operative at Davangere, Karnataka , who was reportedly involved in two bomb blasts in Assam and West Bengal, The Hindu 29 January 2015.

22. Bharti Jain, “Bardhaman blast: NIA probe leads to J&K, Tamil Nadu, Kerala,” The Times of India, 12 October 2014.

23. https://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/silent-invasion/

Rate this Article
Star Rating Loader Please wait...
The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Dr N Manoharan & Dr Bidanda Chengappa

Dr N Manoharan is Associate Professors, Department of International Studies, Christ University, Bengaluru. Dr Bidanda Chengappa has a PhD in India’s national security and foreign policy towards China and a Masters in Strategic Studies from the University of Madras. He has written a research monograph Pakistan’s Fifth Estate: The ISI Directorate.

More by the same author

Post your Comment

2000characters left

One thought on “Implications of Terror Strike in Dhaka

  1. Entire India along with West Bengal was shocked by the incident of a Nun Gang-Rape case who was 71 year old, happened during a robbery attempt at convent school in Nadia district. The incident happened in March 2015. Later CID nabbed the two persons one from WB and other from Mumbai. As per the news repot both of them were from Bangladesh, illegally staying here.

    Not only the above incident, as per news report, many dreaded most wanted criminals from Bangladesh have been arrested from WB. No body knows how many more criminals from Bangladesh have been infiltrated and staying in WB and other states. But these criminals must be arrested and deported to Bangladesh.

    Khagragarh incident indicate the presence of terrorist module from Bangladesh. These terrorists after being out from Bangladesh took shelter in WB and spread their wings safely.

    These terrorists and criminals infiltrated from Bangladesh are dangerous for the security of our country.

    As per the news report these infiltrators are cleaver enough and managed to have fake Indian voter ID/ Adhaar card and mingled with population and even open Bank account. They are involved in fake currency racket. The recent Note Ban must have heart these terrorists and criminals badly.

    Hope our present Govt will take stringent steps, to nab down these terrorists and criminals and punish them. Long term policy must be implemented in the border districts to stop infiltration from Bangladesh. Stringent measure must be taken to issue voter ID/Aadhar cards of these border districts. Voter ID/Aadhar card issued in last five years in the border districts may be examined /reviewed. These infiltrators should not be allowed to participate in electoral process. Perpetrators of these terrorists /criminals must also be punished.

More Comments Loader Loading Comments