Dhaka, Feb.14 (ANI): Late night on April 1, 2004, two trawlers - Kazadan and Amanat- berthed at the Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited (CUFL) jetty. Their lethal cargo consisted of 4,930 sophisticated firearms of different types, 840 rocket launchers, 300 rockets, 27,020 grenades, 2,000 grenade-launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 11.41 million bullets.
Ten years after the incident, a Chittagong Metropolitan Special Tribunal sentenced 14 people to death on January 30, 2014. These included Jamaat Ameer, the then Industries Minister and war crimes accused Matiur RahmanNizami; former BNP Minister of State for Home Lutfozzaman Babar and several intelligence officers, including the former Director General of National Security Intelligence (NSI) Brigadier General (retired) Abdur Rahim, former NSI director Wing Commander (retired) Shahabuddin and former DGFI director Major General (retired) Rezzakul HaiderChowdhury etc.
What makes the 2004 Chittagong Arms haul so lethal is both the nature of the consignment and the conspiracy behind it. The arms were enough to keep the North-East bleeding for years. Equally ominous was the involvement of Pakistan's ISI with the Bangladesh agencies under a Khaleda Zia-led BNP-Jamaat Government that allowed Pakistan to use its state machinery and territory to smuggle arms for waging war in eastern India.
The investigation, and especially the interrogation of Brigadier General (retired) Abdur Rahim, Wing Commander (retired) Sahabuddin and local smuggler Hafiz, revealed the full contours of the Pakistan ISI-BNP-ULFA conspiracy.
Firstly, Pakistani business tycoon Abdul RazzakYakub, founder of the Dubai-based ARY Group, and Pakistan's ISI were directly involved with the plan of smuggling the seized arms. Salman Iqbal, a Pakistani national who was Managing Director of the ARY Group had visited Dhaka on a couple of occasions on the pretext of establishing the ARY TV channel in the country.
During these visits, he held a number of meetings at NSI safe houses in Dhaka. These meetings were attended by BNP State Minister for Home Lutfozzaman Babar, an NSI operative, together with ISI officials posted in the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka and the ULFA Commander Paresh Barua. In these meetings, details of payments to facilitate the smuggling of arms were worked out.
Second, two ISI officials, a defence attache and a counselor then working in the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka, were associated with the plans of smuggling of arms. They attended the above meetings.
Third, NSI chief Brigadier General (retired) Abdur Rahim attended several meetings with senior ISI officers, both within the country and abroad. He also had a meeting with Lt. Gen. Ehsanul Haque, then Director General of the ISI, in London, in connection with the finalization of the arms procurement deal.
Fourth, the ISI had provided mobile monitoring equipment to the NSI as a gift and Director General of the NSI Abdur Rahim had visited London to discuss the handing over of the device with an ISI officer.
Fifth, the NSI had rented a house in Dhaka for ULFA military commander Paresh Barua, and gave him protection to operate his outfit from inside Bangladesh during the BNP-Jamaat rule. He used a pseudonym, Zaman, and went into hiding soon after the story of the 10-truck arms haul started unravelling.
Sixth, just two days before the arms haul, Shahabuddin and DGFI director (Counter Intelligence Bureau) Brigadier General Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury held a meeting with Paresh Barua to discuss the arrival of weapons and it's off-loading.
Seventh, on the instructions of Shahabuddin, the trucks to be used for off-loading the shipment were hired by NSI field officer Mohammad Akbar Hossain and NSI Deputy Director (Technical) Maj or Liakat Hossain supervised the off-loading of the arms.
While the Chittagong court has done its job, the lessons from the case should be of abiding concern to India about the long-term intentions of Pakistan, working in tandem with an unfriendly government in Bangladesh.
It is easily forgotten that in the wake of an international outcry over Pakistan's involvement in Kashmir for encouraging and abetting terrorism in Kashmir and other parts of India, the ISI had diverted its anti-India operations through Bangladesh.
This was the time when General Musharraf was waxing eloquent about not letting Pakistan's soil being used for anti-India activities. Instead, he and the ISI used the very fertile soil of a Bangladesh headed by Khaleda Zia and the Jamaat for its nefarious designs.
The pro-Pakistan BNP Government allowed Pakistan to open anti-India terror fronts in Bangladesh to destabilize India.
The case reveals how deeply Pakistan's ISI had penetrated the DGFI and NSI between 2001 and 2006, to the extent that senior officers like the NSI chief Brigadier General Abdur Rahim and Director DGFI Major General Rezzaqul Hyder Chowdhury were ISI moles. Such penetration of the intelligence agencies clearly provided Pakistan with a multiplier advantage.
The arms and ammunition were clearly meant to replenish the dwindling stock of arms of the ULFA in the aftermath of the crack down launched by the Bhutanese Army against them in Bhutan in 2003. But for this seizure, the ULFA would have replenished their armoury for a considerable period.
Above all, it must never be forgotten that the single largest weapons haul was discovered quite by accident. It was sheer providence that despite the intelligence agencies of Pakistan and Bangladesh working in tandem to hand over the huge cache to the ULFA, they were unable to do so.
Next time around, with another unfriendly government in Dhaka, we may not be so lucky.
The views expressed in the above article are that of Mr. Salim Haq. (ANI)
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