WB caught in ISI net; Govt tries hard to wriggle out

The arrest of a Kashmiri militant in Nadia District on March 30 this year only confirmed the suspicions that the ISI is trying to spread its net deeper into West Bengal.

The extremist, who was caught travelling in a Calcutta-bound state transport bus, later told the interrogation that “he was in Calcutta to visit some friends.’ The police seized from him a fax from Islamabad addressed to a fundamentalist organisation in Dhaka and also recovered about $ 2,600.

The 33-year-old militant, belonging to the Al-Faran group, subsequentlyrevealed that he had gone to Dhaka and entered West Bengal via Lalgola of Murshidabad District. On both occasions he used the same route.

According to the Border Security Force (BSF) Inspector General, South Bengal, R N Bhattacharya, “Lalgola and Beldanga in Murshidabad District have been a happy hunting ground for the ISI agents for quite sometime now.”

Bhattacharaya told The Indian Express that ISI agents are settling down in Murshidabad apparently because of its proximity to Bangladesh, the demographic pattern and fragile law and order situation there. According to a Central intelligence report, these Pakistani agents in Murshidabad even provide generous funds for smuggling and anti-social activities by small-time goons to anchor themselves in the area to carry out their real tasks.

Some places in North Bengal too are fast developing as transit points for ISI agents to maintain liaison with the rebel groups, like the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and Bodo Security Force.

A topofficial in the BSF, however said on the condition of anonymity: “It’s becoming particularly difficult for us to identify these agents in face of tacit acceptance of the fact at the political level that cross-border movements by ISI men are normal affairs in the districts abutting Bangladesh.”

“For the same difficulty we have not been able to ascertain their immediate targets in West Bengal either, besides carrying out the acts of sabotage in North-eastern States,” admitted the official.

The infiltration of ISI agents into West Bengal began in the early 1990s, explains a top police official.

Things came to the fore with the arrest of an agent running an ISI network in May 1993. In 1994 again three Muslim youths with ISI links were arrested in Calcutta. The youths, according to police sources, had ISI training in sabotage operations. An arrest of the same nature was made the next year also.