The Bengal Tigers in the R&AW cage

R&AW trained Crusader 100 in action in Bangladesh.

Strictly scrutinized 100 armed cadres of the ruling Awami League in Bangladesh, who received 6-month long extensive commando training at Dehradun in India under the direct supervision of Indian espionage agency the Research and Analysis Wing are continuing various types of activities, including secret killing, abduction etcetera since June of 2010 with the mission of “clearing” a large number of politicians, media personnel and members of the civil society in Bangladesh. The team codenamed “Crusader-100” went to India during end September 2009 and stayed there till mid June 2010, where brilliant commando trainers of Indian Army gave extensive training to these people under the disguise of “training few young commandos of Bangladesh Army”.

The entire project of “Crusader-100” was originally conceived by Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the project was coordinated directly by the Bangladeshi Prime Minister and her defense advisor Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Tarique Ahmed Siddiqui.

Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Tarique Ahmed Siddiqui maintains special connection with Indian RAW and British MI6 for decades, since he was in army service. Such relations of RAW and MI6 with him was because of his family relations with Sheikh Hasina. When Bangladesh Awami League formed government in January 2009, Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Tarique Ahmed Siddiqui became extremely important in the government due to his official position as the defense advisor to the Bangladeshi Prime Minister as well as his personal identity of being the brother-in-law of Prime Minister’s younger sister Sheikh Rehana. The selection of the entire batch of ruling party cadres, who were sent to India for commando training were directly done by Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Tarique Ahmed Siddiqui and a few of his loyal colleagues and retired army officers, while on return of the members of the “Crusader-100” team from India, they were provided a hit list comprising names of opposition politicians, members of Bangladeshi media and some members of the civil society. According to information, the list contains names of more than 83 people, who are planned to be “cleared” by the members of the “Crusader-100” gang. The members of these specially trained hitters are housed inside several buildings at Dhaka’s Gulshan and Baridhara areas. The Baridhara “bases” of the hitters is maintained directly by Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Tarique Ahmed Siddiqui and each of such places are equipped with sophisticated surveillance equipments as well as entry of civilians are restricted within these premises. Leader of Bangladesh Nationalist Party, M Ilias Ali, who became victim of enforced disappearance recently, was also named in the list of Crusader-100 force. My New Delhi contacts disclosed few of the names of the hit list, which include, political leaders Amanullah Aman, Mirza Abbas, Sadeque Hossain Khoka, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, M Ilias Ali, Habibun Nabi Sohel, Abdullah Al Noman, Barrister Abdur Razzaque, Shafiul Alam Pradhan, ASM Abdur Rob, Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini and Moulana Fazlul Karim. Awami League and RAW have decided “clearing” the listed names latest by December 2013, which they consider to be “vital” for the ruling party in Bangladesh in returning into power.

The gang of Crusader-100 is equipped with sophisticated small and medium range weapons, mostly with silencers as well as bullet-proof jackets, gas bombs and vehicles for their operations. Some of the members of this gang use satellite phones to skip interception of any of the Bangladeshi intelligence agencies. Each of the members of this gang received healthy financial package alongside various types of extra benefits, including apartments in Dhaka city for the members of their families and small businesses. They are not allowed to show faces during the day-time and mostly required to stay inside their bases in Dhaka city. In case of emergency, when the members of the team are required to go on street during the day time, they are compulsorily required to wear black-tinted helmets, to hide their faces from the public. By rotation, members of the team are secretly taken to India for a break of 7-10 days for “amusement” purposes. In such cases, they are allowed to cross Bangladesh-India borders without any travel documents.

Source :

RAW trained Crusader 100 in action in Bangladesh

The gang of Crusader-100 is equipped with sophisticated small and medium range weapons, mostly with silencers as well as bullet-proof jackets, gas bombs and vehicles for their operations.

 

Strictly scrutinized 100 armed cadres of the ruling Awami League in Bangladesh, who received 6-month long extensive commando training at Dehradun in India under the direct supervision of Indian espionage agency RAW are continuing various types of activities, including secret killing, abduction etcetera since June of 2010 with the mission of “clearing” a large number of politicians, media personnel and members of the civil society in Bangladesh. The team codenamed “Crusader-100” went to India during end September 2009 and stayed there till mid June 2010, where brilliant commando trainers of Indian Army gave extensive training to these people under the disguise of “training few young commandos of Bangladesh Army”. The entire project of “Crusader-100” was originally conceived by Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the project was coordinated directly by the Bangladeshi Prime Minister and her defense advisor Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Tarique Ahmed Siddiqui.

Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Tarique Ahmed Siddiqui maintains special connection with Indian RAW and British MI6 for decades, since he was in army service. Such relations of RAW and MI6 with him was because of his family relations with Sheikh Hasina. When Bangladesh Awami League formed government in January 2009, Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Tarique Ahmed Siddiqui became extremely important in the government due to his official position as the defense advisor to the Bangladeshi Prime Minister as well as his personal identity of being the brother-in-law of Prime Minister’s younger sister Sheikh Rehana. The selection of the entire batch of ruling party cadres, who were sent to India for commando training were directly done by Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Tarique Ahmed Siddiqui and a few of his loyal colleagues and retired army officers, while on return of the members of the “Crusader-100” team from India, they were provided a hit list comprising names of opposition politicians, members of Bangladeshi media and some members of the civil society. According to information, the list contains names of more than 83 people, who are planned to be “cleared” by the members of the “Crusader-100” gang. The members of these specially trained hitters are housed inside several buildings at Dhaka’s Gulshan and Baridhara areas. The Baridhara “bases” of the hitters is maintained directly by Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Tarique Ahmed Siddiqui and each of such places are equipped with sophisticated surveillance equipments as well as entry of civilians are restricted within these premises. Leader of Bangladesh Nationalist Party, M Ilias Ali, who became victim of enforced disappearance recently, was also named in the list of Crusader-100 force. My New Delhi contacts disclosed few of the names of the hit list, which include, political leaders Amanullah Aman, Mirza Abbas, Sadeque Hossain Khoka, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, M Ilias Ali, Habibun Nabi Sohel, Abdullah Al Noman, Barrister Abdur Razzaque, Shafiul Alam Pradhan, ASM Abdur Rob, Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini and Moulana Fazlul Karim. Awami League and RAW have decided “clearing” the listed names latest by December 2013, which they consider to be “vital” for the ruling party in Bangladesh in returning into power.

The gang of Crusader-100 is equipped with sophisticated small and medium range weapons, mostly with silencers as well as bullet-proof jackets, gas bombs and vehicles for their operations. Some of the members of this gang use satellite phones to skip interception of any of the Bangladeshi intelligence agencies. Each of the members of this gang received healthy financial package along side various types of extra benefits, including apartments in Dhaka city for the members of their families and small businesses. They are not allowed to show faces during the day-time and mostly required to stay inside their bases in Dhaka city. In case of emergency, when the members of the team are required to go on street during the day time, they are compulsorily required to wear black-tinted helmets, to hide their faces from the public. By rotation, members of the team are secretly taken to India for a break of 7-10 days for “amusement” purposes. In such cases, they are allowed to cross Bangladesh-India borders without any travel documents. 

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SOUTH ASIAN SCENE : India’s deeply disturbing flip-flop neighbourhood policy

An independent group of Indian strategic analysts in their latest report entitled ‘A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty-first Century’ observed:

“Interstate politics in South Asia has direct spill-over effects into domestic and regional politics in India. India’s ability to command respect is considerably diminished by the resistance it meets in the region. South Asia also places fetters on India’s global ambitions.”

The report did not deal with the other side of the coin. India’s flip-flop neighbourhood policy, not to speak of suspected covert interventions in the domestic affair of other South Asian nations, is having a destabilizing effect particularly on its smaller neighbours, and in turn is beginning to boomerang on its own blueprint of “stability, development, security and also its regional and global aspirations.” This was noted by Professor S D Muni, who runs a Delhi think tank, in candid terms in a working paper published on March 16 by the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, where he is a Visiting Research Fellow. He cited the case of Maldives as an example. In a summarised form, I briefly reproduce his dissertation.

The Maldives’ first major political transition took place in 1968 from a Sultanate to a republic. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom became the third president of the republic in 1978 and survived three coup attempts against him in 1980, 1983 and 1988 respectively. During the last one, he was rescued by an active Indian military intervention (under an India Navy’s operation called ‘Sandhya’) undertaken on his specific request. He eventually had to give up power in the face of a struggle for democracy during 2007-08 against his authoritarian ways to govern, after losing in a popular election in 2008. Nasheed of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), declared a ‘prisoner of conscience’ by the Amnesty International for his ordeal of detention by the Gayoom regime for nine years on 27 different occasions, led the struggle and became the first popular president of the Maldives.

But after 3 years and 4 months of his rule marked by both sensationalism and authoritarianism, President Nasheed was forced to resign and hand over power to his Vice-President Mohammad Waheed Hassan Manik on 7 February 2012, in the face of a revolt from the security forces comprising of the country’s Police Force and the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF). While the succeeding President Waheed has projected it as a constitutional and peaceful transition of power, Nasheed and his supporters have termed it as a coup claiming that President Nasheed was forced to resign at the ‘point of gun’.

(India has) deep strategic and economic stakes in the Maldives. Strategically, the Maldives occupies a critical position in the Indian Ocean Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOC) through which thousands of merchant and naval ships transit. During the Second World War, British had established an operational base in the southern Gan Island of the Maldives. This base was handed over to the Maldives only in 1976 when the US had established a senior Naval Command in Diego Garcia, some 600 miles further south of Gan. In 1977, the then Soviet Union approached the Maldives for setting up naval facilities to counter the US Diego Garcia base but without any success. In 1988, when India rescued the Gayoom regime, the attempted coup was suspected to have been led by a Sri Lankan Tamil militant group, Peoples’ Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE). In 2001, during Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji’s visit to the Maldives, a proposal was made for establishing a Chinese submarine base in Marao coral island of the Maldives, located about 40 km south of the capital Male. Though such a submarine base has not been established, China entered into a defence cooperation agreement with the Maldives, signed during the Gayoom regime that lasted until 2009. India was then able to persuade the-then President Nasheed to let the Indian Navy to step in and fill up the gap.

Although India had rescued the constituted ruler of Maldives in 1988, Indian policy-makers remained practically oblivious of possible adversarial use of the Maldives’ strategic location until the November 2008 cross-border terrorist attack in Mumbai from across the sea. India became particularly concerned about Lashkar-e-Toiba seeking a foothold in the Maldives by exploiting the Islamic connection.

This led India to conclude a close defence cooperation agreement with the Maldives. In August 2009, during the visit by Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony, India agreed to set up 26 radar stations across 26 Atolls of the Maldives. These stations will be linked to Indian Coastal Command. India will also establish an air force station for surveillance flights to monitor the ‘movement of pirates, terrorists, smugglers’ and such peace-threatening forces.

Security cooperation between the two countries was reinforced and extended along with a Framework Agreement for Development Cooperation Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to the Maldives in November, 2011.

But Indian policy-makers stumbled again when Nasheed was ousted. The sudden ouster of the popularly elected President Nasheed was initially described by India as an ‘internal development’. It viewed the change in guard as a peaceful and constitutional transition of power.

In a letter sent to the new President, Prime Minister underlined the “common destiny and common security interests” shared by the two countries, adding that “India is committed to working with you and the Government of Maldives, to further enhance our close, bilateral cooperation to mutual benefit and for the continued security, progress and prosperity of our two countries”.

Legitimising Nasheed’s exit

As it turned out, the latest change in the Maldives was neither peaceful nor orderly. There were violent clashes between Nasheed’s supporters and police, which threw the law and order situation into utter disarray in the capital, Male, and other atolls like Nasheed’s stronghold of Addu. India changed tune and joined the chorus of international support coming to Nasheed, particularly from the United Kingdom, which set up a Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) to investigate the circumstances of this political change.

Thereafter India began trying to make a course correction of its initial hasty move of going all out to legitimise the exit of Nasheed. India has, in the process, trapped itself deep in the Maldives’ domestic power struggle. In fact, New Delhi was not quite comfortable with Nasheed’s abrasive style of politics and governance which alienated his former allies and strengthened his opponents.

The Indian strategic establishment also suspected that the Nasheed administration was hobnobbing with China behind India’s back on the possibility of granting projects of naval significance, including a Chinese ‘submarine base’. The question of ‘Nasheed’s proximity to China’, particularly of his defence minister’s, was reportedly brought up by India’s intelligence agencies, in a high-level meeting of the Defence Crisis Management Group in New Delhi when it discussed the question of India’s intervention in the Maldives to rescue Nasheed from the violence and chaos that marked the aftermath of political transition. The Indian security establishment was also uneasy with the Nasheed administration’s proximity to the UK and the presence of British advisers around him. There were suspicions that the UK, either for its own sake or on behalf of the US, for the latter was expanding and consolidating its presence in the Asia-Pacific region, could persuade the Maldives to grant naval presence to it. If that were to happen, it would blunt, if not neutralise, Maldives’ emerging defence cooperation with India.

Indian approach remained flip-flop. Result is, three visits by powerful Indian diplomats, first by a special envoy of Indian Prime Minister who is Secretary (West) of India’s External Affairs Ministry, and then two consecutive visits by Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai failed to fix a “roadmap” for Maldives and only compounded confusion.

The All Party Consultative Committee (APCC) established for dialogue between the rival political forces was not able to deliberate meaningfully on the questions of early elections and any constitutional amendments to facilitate elections.

Questions developed within the ruling coalition on India’s role. India’s advocacy for early elections and concern for the protection and security of Nasheed and his close associates were seen as being a partisan intervention. The hard-liners in the ruling coalition were getting resentful of India’s ‘interference’ in the Maldives’ internal affairs. They objected to Indian Foreign Secretary Mathai’s participation in APCC.

After Mathai’s departure, Maldives Home Minister Mohammad Jameel stressed that “as long as India does not interfere in the internal affairs of Maldives, all other efforts put by India will be seen as constructive. 

However, India must not be seen as a friend only of one party or political individual”.

Complaints

Similar complaints about Delhi preferring Indian “overt” government relations with a particular political party in Bangladesh, rather than government-to-government relations, also persists in this country. Of late, certain developments in the domestic situation of Bangladesh, apart from the continuing menace of death-traps in Indo-Bangladesh borders set by trigger-happy Indian BSF, is deeply disturbing public psyche over what is perceived as “covert” operations being pursued by trained Indian RAW agents or their criminal accomplices.

A number of unsolved cases of mysterious murders and disappearances have reinforced suspicion of interventionist and bloody Indian hands behind these mishaps. Two of such mishaps without a clue confronting our law-enforcement agencies are the cruel double-murder by knifing of a journalist couple in their own secure apartment, and the gun-shot murder of a Saudi diplomat in the secure diplomatic zone.

Referring to the last case a weekly tabloid, also on-line, reproduced a “scoop” which I quote hereunder: 

“According to the scoop, the intelligence agency of a neighboring country trained at least 75 nefarious armed cadres of the ruling party during October 2009 to June 2010. Since their return to Bangladesh, these cadres are provided “safe shelter” inside a couple of houses in Dhaka, which are located within the diplomatic enclaves. They go out with “operation mission” during dark hours and return to the safe shelters on completions of such mission, which includes abduction as well as secret killing.

“On the night of the murder of Khalaf bin Mohammed Salem al-Ali, the Saudi diplomat was stopped on road when he came out from the residence of a Jamaat-e-Islami leader by few members of the killing squad. He was pulled inside a car and taken inside one of the safe shelters, where he was murdered. Later the killers re-loaded Khalaf bin Mohammed Salem al-Ali’s dead body and dumped it near his residence and fled the spot. Bangladeshi investigators expressed surprise seeing no blood stain at the spot where the Saudi diplomat’s dead body was recovered.”

The vernacular media and also government authorities have ignored that speculative report as sensationalism, but younger readers and senior citizens who have time to leisurely browse online news cannot but have been gripped by a panic syndrome. That syndrome is contaminating our people throughout the country after the strange happenings of the disappearance of the just-resigned Railway minister’s car-driver who exposed the rent-collection scandal in personnel recruitment by Railway officials allegedly in collusion with the Railway minister (now removed but retained as minister without portfolio) and the abduction of a high profile former lawmaker and Opposition BNP’s Organising Secretary (Sylhet Division) M. Ilias Ali with his nephew car-driver from Dhaka streets around midnight on 17th April. 

BY : Sadeq Khan. 

Indian design of sending its Army to Bangladesh

A Dhaka-based weekly quoted Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Special Envoy Satinder K Lamba as saying on April 5 (2012) that terrorists and insurgents continue to operate from Bangladesh, despite the government's efforts to contain them. "There's a need to sustain the current levels of cooperation to jointly eradicate the menace of insurgency, terrorism and militancy from our soil," he said, while delivering the keynote address at the Fourth India-Bangladesh Security Dialogue, organized by the Observer Research Foundation.

The weekly alleged “After successfully extracting series of one-sided benefit from the current ruling party in Bangladesh, policymakers in New Delhi has now stepped into its next phase of plan of putting pressure on the government of Sheikh Hasina in allowing Indian troops to enter Bangladesh territory for starting joint operations against terrorists, insurgents, militants and criminal elements.” Neither India nor Bangladesh government yet objected Lamba’s assertion, what is unfortunate as well as awesome. Silence of the concerned partners signals that the message of Lamba bears some merit.

The excuse that Lamba made is lame and unacceptable in one hand, as well as worrisome and disturbing on the other. It is not for the first time that Indians uttered such irresponsible and baseless allegation against Bangladesh, but earlier never nakedly dared to say, what it says now, that Indian army is needed to be stationed in Bangladesh. For decades, India keeps raising such baseless allegation even mentioning the locations (along with maps) of the alleged terrorists’ camps. Bangladesh repeatedly searched and investigated those locations and found that those sites were either paddy field, or stadium, or school, or tank or river, or market, and so on and so forth. Bangladesh even invited India to send its concerned personnel to see for themselves and conduct joint investigation to justify their allegation whether there was such camps in the locations/addresses what they officially sent to Bangladesh. But India never accepted that offer.

Let us accept for the sake of debate that Indian allegation is genuine. Still will it be justified to send Indian Army to Bangladesh? Will the international community, not to speak of the Bangladeshi people, welcome such intervention under any excuse? India should, at least, put pressure on Bangladesh to expel those terrorists, if any, from her territory. India could even raise the issue before the regional forum like SAARC and international body UNO. India can even seek international observers to oversee Bangladesh-India border. But India cannot march or push its soldiers to Bangladesh availing any controversial treaties or commitments, as they don’t ventilate the hopes and aspiration of the people of Bangladesh. Bangladeshi people will never agree to sell out their sovereignty and independence to any power under the cover of friendship.

It is known to all that India itself is the safe harbor of the terrorists and secessionists who operate from India to her neighboring countries. India shelters and assists the Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Burmese, Nepali, Tibetan, Pakistani, Afghan and Maldivian terrorists, secessionists and anti-social elements. India provides them shelter and training inside its territory, other than money, arms and ammunitions and explosives. None of these countries ever argued to send troops to India to wipe out those terrorists or secessionists.

It needs to be mentioned if any terrorist group exists in Bangladesh, they are simply India-sponsored and India-financed. All types of arms and ammunitions, explosives that were recovered in Bangladesh on several occasions were pushed from India. Those who belonged to JMB (Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh) and were hanged in Bangladesh confessed that they got arms and explosives and even training from Indian intelligence agencies. India started Sri Lankan civil war. It squeezes Bangladesh, destabilizes Maldives, ransacks Pakistan, weakens Nepal and disturbs Myanmar (even China sheltering and using Dalai lama since 1959).

The next question is this how the terrorists operate from Bangladesh, as India fenced most parts of its border and deployed hundreds of thousands of BSF and even Army personnel in her bordering areas. Indian BSF kills our innocent people almost daily. How do the terrorist cross the border to and from Bangladesh territory? Could BSF or Indian Army ever catch or kill even single terrorist? It is the Bangladesh government that nabbed them (freedom fighters) and handed over them to India. So India has no face to table such claim. Still if India is cocksure that such terrorists or extremists are operating from Bangladesh against India, it can simply ask the government with documents to nab the terrorists. But India has no right to put pressure on Bangladesh to allow Indian Army to enter or stay in Bangladesh.

In stead of blaming others for nursing terrorists against India, she should fix her internal problems. India’s internal adverse situation and colony-style administration fuel terrorism in India. India is a home of terrorists, extremists, fundamentalists, communists, communalists, racists. Secessionists who are active in eight states from Nagaland to Kashmir to cede their regions from Indian claws are termed as terrorists. India could not defeat them in 65-year history of India. India doesn’t have any logic to blame us for over one hundred secessionist (whom India terms as terrorists) organizations that are active in our neighboring Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh. Let India herself defeat them. It is India’s own problem. It is an illogical bid to station her troops to any country to fix her own problem. As India failed to eradicate the freedom fighters of our neighboring regions how it will do it stationing its troops in our soil.

If any Indian terrorist group is active in Bangladesh, Bangladeshi security agencies are strong enough to tackle them. Our Army personnel, under UN Peacekeeping Mission, already earned huge reputation and acclamation of the international community for their heroic role in combating terrorism in the disturbed regions around the world. They also did the same in dealing with the India-sponsored Chakma terrorists in CHT (Chittagong Hill Tracts) that India armed, financed, trained and sheltered to cede one-tenth of Bangladesh territory what is an integral part of Bangladeshi since prehistoric era. In doing so Bangladesh didn’t impose emergency, or martial law in CHT and didn’t enact any barbaric law like POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) or TADA, (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act) or UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) or AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958) or any other inhuman barbaric law what India did in case of Punjab, Kashmir, and neighboring regions of Bangladesh. Still our Army successfully contained secessionists and terrorists in CHT without Indian help. So, Bangladesh is strong enough to wipe out the Indian nationals from our soil and we don’t need Indian Army in Bangladesh as they (Indian Army) failed to subdue them in India itself. It is the duty of the Indian government not to allow the Indian terrorists to enter Bangladesh. Insurgency or terrorism or communalism in India is her internal problem and India should find its solution within her territory. Its intention to launch so-called joint operation inside Bangladesh is a laughable story and a tactic to station its troops in Bangladesh and crush the nationalist elements in order to merge Bangladesh in course of time. The short-term goal of such deployment is to keep the pro-India elements in power to reach that goal.

Now, according to Indian version, most trusted government headed by Sheikh Hasina is in power and India managed to fetch maximum one-sided key advantages virtually giving nothing to Bangladesh in exchange. Still India is not contended. India genuinely feels that if the pro-India heavyweights in Dhaka are removed, the next ruling class may not akin to the controversial covert and overt treaties what the incumbent government signed. Indian policymakers publicly declared that Bangladesh would not be allowed to get out of Indian radar anymore. This is inner why India wants to deploy its forces to continue its undesired influence and supremacy on Bangladesh. Observers opine that those who now rule Bangladesh are also desperate to remain in power and they may agree to invite Indian Army to crush the pro-nationalist opposition activists branding them as terrorists, militants and criminal elements.

Mentionable that Indian Army entered Bhutan in 2003 to dismantle ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam) camps in Bhutan. But Indian Army still stays in Bhutan though there in no ULFA cadre in Bhutanese territory. India designs to act same drama in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the region. India itself sends its agents or recruits agents to create a situation to intervene in her neighboring countries. All the neighboring countries of India are the victims of India’s notorious game.

Under such circumstances, all the neighboring countries of India should form a unified coalition to thwart India’s hegemonic designs and punish her for her misdeeds. India should no longer be allowed to disturb its neighboring countries. Let all of us be united to resist this sinister demon. Let us stop and bridle it in advance to deter the emergence of unimaginable bloodshed in South Asia that will occur after India’s step to enter Bangladesh.

So far I guess the common people of Bangladesh will never welcome Indian Army to our soil. Our people will treat them as enemy army and simply resist them at any cost. This is our historical heroic tradition. We seldom welcomed foreign domination. Foreign exploiters using local tentacles temporarily succeeded in dominating us, but they were ultimately beaten back. It was the Bengalee Muslims named Titumir, Fakir Maznu Shah, Shariwat Ullah who were the first in the Subcontinent to wage anti-British resistance. The Hindus stood against the British Rule basically in early 20th century which was started to foil the partition of Bengal in 1905 that according to the Hindus was tilted to the interest of the Muslims. Anti-India sentiment now is far stronger than that of Pakistan period, as the Bangladeshis extremely annoyed and tormented at India’s ugly behavior and hegemonic policy against Bangladesh. Indian soldiers will face more ferocious and tougher resistance in Bangladesh than their Pakistani counterparts (soldiers) faced in 1971.

Indian policymakers should restudy our history and feel our psyche, our spirit and zeal for freedom. Bangladesh is not a country of Landuf Dorjee, whose annexation (of Sikkim) went unchallenged. Bangladesh is a challengeable region. Pro-India elements though rule Bangladesh, its people will not honor or welcome physical presence of Indian Army. What India gained from Bangladesh using its surrogates, will lose that once Indian Army enters Bangladesh. Moreover, our crusade against India will not remain confined to our territory; it will rather engulf our neighboring regions where people are fighting to get out of India and it will lead to the subdivision and fragmentation of India.

It will not be out of place to remind all why India designs to send its army to Bangladesh. Withdrawal of Indian troops in 1972 from Bangladesh was beyond its intention and policy. India’s former President Giani Zail Singh (1982-87) in his last interview as President with a Calcutta-based weekly ‘SUNDAY’ (July 25, 1987) mourned saying “Decision of quick withdrawal of Indian troops from Bangladesh in 1972 was not judicious one. It hampered the interest of India. We could not protect the interest of the country withdrawing our troops hurriedly.” This is the inner reason why Satinder K Lamba exposed Indian intention saying to station Indian troops in Bangladesh. Once they can enter Bangladesh will never leave it.

I earnestly appeal to all the Bangladeshi expatriates around the world to remain vigil about Indian game and play active role in mobilizing worldwide public opinion to undo Indian design. Let us bring the issue to the notice of all the international and regional forums, including the governments of the respected countries where we presently reside. Let us foil Indian design of sending its Army to Bangladesh and save our country from disaster. If such unfortunate event is allowed to occur the world will experience the worst and most horrible genocide in South Asian region that never happened earlier.

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The Indian Mutiny That Wasn't

What's behind the strange coup rumors in Delhi?

V.S. Naipul entitled his 1990 travelogue, about the constant chaos that defines the world's largest democracy, India: A Million Mutinies Now. Yet for all the warning signs that India gives off -- a weak political system regularly seized by policy paralysis and riven by corruption, public fury at incompetent politicians, large armed forces, and intelligence agencies active in domestic politics -- the country has been wholly successful in keeping the lid on its military. In fact, the revelations this week of troop movements around New Delhi and a panicked civilian response that have spooked some Indians into thinking there was a failed coup attempt illustrates both the weaknesses of the Indian system and the sheer improbability of a military challenge to civilian rule. 

The Indian Express, a respected English-language broadsheet, alleged in a story published this week that on the evening of Jan. 16, Indian intelligence spotted important military units moving toward Delhi. No one had notified the Defense Ministry, as protocol requires. Unlike in opaque China, shaken by coup rumors of its own a few weeks ago, the Indian Express released a blow-by-blow account of what the paper alleges transpired in India: The defense secretary -- the department's most senior civilian bureaucrat -- rushed back from Malaysia and summoned the army's director of military operations. The prime minister was informed "at the crack of dawn." A contingency plan, developed in response to the mutiny of Sikh units in 1984, was activated and lookouts alerted. Later, a terror alert was issued to hold up the movement of army convoys. 

Speaking to The Hindu, a senior intelligence official countered that "at no stage was the possibility of a coup, or any attempt to overawe the government, ever discussed," but, he conceded, "we worried about indiscipline, or a show of support [for the army chief] by some elements -- and it's our job to consider those possibilities." While it's still too early to say for sure, it appears that India's notoriously skittish civilian leadership has cracked down on its officers once again.

India's officer corps is bound by one of the tightest leashes in the democratic world -- by design. India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, saw the military as an instrument of British repression and reviled what he saw as its culture of violence and obedience. In the 1950s, rumors of a coup -- compounded by Ayub Khan's takeover next door in Pakistan -- were one factor that prompted Nehru loyalist Krishna Menon's elevation to the position of defense minister to strengthen the civilians' already iron-clad grip over the military establishment. Military-to-military ties, particularly with the United States, were viewed with great suspicion for fear that officers would grow empowered and absorb subversive political ideas. 

Yet paradoxically, the civilians have thrust expanding domestic roles onto the soldiers. Out of 17 major Indian Army campaigns between 1947 and 1995, a dozen were within India's borders. Between 1982 and 1989, the army was deployed to assist the civilian authorities no less than 721 times. All this took place during a period of such growing political instability that Atul Kohli, a scholar of India at Princeton, subtitled his 1990 book "India's Growing Crisis of Governability." The civilians appeared not to mind empowering generals as state governors and advisors, as long as their forces stayed in far-flung parts of the country. Over the past decade, the number of paramilitary troops has leapt upwards and relieved much of the burden, but domestic army deployments haven't stopped.

India's neighbors Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Pakistan have all experienced coups in the last half-century, sparked by military empowerment and political crises. How has India been able to avoid this fate? For a start, India's army is too dispersed, too diverse, too content, and too professional to challenge democratic rule. One comprehensive study of civil-military relations in India by Aburba Kundu, a scholar at Britain's Anglia Ruskin University, concludes that "commissioned Indian officers will never instigate a coup" [italics in original] because senior military officers possess a deep-seated professional ethos and commitment to democracy. Paul Staniland, a professor at the University of Chicago, also points out that "the difference between India and Pakistan is that Indian institutions and legitimacy have not crumbled" even if they've occasionally looked fragile. And although Indian officers have chafed under these restrictions, they've almost always expressed their resentment in a constitutional and proper fashion. 

Despite this, the civilian leadership remains unconvinced of the army's trustworthiness. Brookings Institution scholar Stephen Cohen, an authority on the Indian Army, has written that "conversations with senior intelligence officers indicate that they have detected at least three major coup attempts by Indian generals," the most recent in the late 1980s. Cohen notes, scathingly, that "there is no credible evidence of such plots, but insecure politicians and bureaucrats, many of whom have a stereotyped image of the military, listen to these warnings."    

Military and civilian leaders do get along better now than in the past. According to a book by Stephen Peter Rosen, a professor at Harvard, the military in the 1990s had little idea of how many nuclear weapons India possessed or how they might be used in wartime (sealed instructions for nuclear use were given to a theater commander, only to be opened when a mushroom cloud appeared). Today, military officers are increasingly plugged into such policymaking -- a retired three-star rank officer now sits in the Prime Minister's Office to deal with nuclear affairs. 

But when tensions flare, the Indian army is soon put in its place. On the day of the troop movements, India's army chief, General V.K. Singh, had taken the unprecedented step of suing the government to allow him to serve for another year (he claims he's a year younger than official records, which would allow him another year before mandatory retirement). Last week, a letter from Singh to the prime minister was leaked to the press. The army chief, implicitly blaming civilian fecklessness, complained that the state of the military "is indeed alarming," that the army's entire tank fleet lacks "critical ammunition to defeat enemy tanks," and that he judged India's air defense system to be "97% obsolete." 

As Nitin Pai, fellow at the Takshashila Institution, notes, the Indian Express's story "could not have been filed without the approval of the highest levels of the Indian government." Clearly, some in the government and civil service were keen on showing the military -- and, specifically, the rebellious army chief -- who's boss. Singh is likely to eke out the remaining month of his term, but as a lame-duck army chief who has lost the confidence of his government. 

India's previous episode of civil-military rupture was similarly characterized by an overreaction from apprehensive civilians. In 1998, navy chief Adm. Vishnu Bhagwat complained publicly about the cabinet's effort to appoint a deputy naval chief. In response, the admiral's intended successor was secretly flown to Delhi in a plane operated by India's foreign intelligence agency. When he arrived, Bhagwat was dismissed and the new officer sworn in to replace him. As Anit Mukherjee, Research Fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis, explains, this was part of a "plan, conceived and executed by a small circle of Indian politicians, bureaucrats, selected military officers and intelligence agencies." The army and air force chiefs weren't even told until the last moment. 

Successive committees, going back decades, have urged India to reform the way it manages its military; recommending in particular that the headquarters of the three service arms better integrate with the Ministry of Defense to improve communication and cooperation between officer corps and civilian bureaucrats. The irony is that the civilians have resisted making these much-needed changes for fear of unleashing a politically influential military. Their resistance has resulted in what Mukherjee has called an "absent dialogue" between those in uniform and their political masters. It was that absence of dialogue that contributed to the errors of communication and judgment during January's late-night crisis in Delhi. India may still be wracked by political and social mutinies, but the Indian Army isn't going to lead any of them. 

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India plans to send troops inside Bangladesh

After successfully extracting series of one-sided benefit from the current ruling party in Bangladesh, policymakers in New Delhi has now stepped into its next phase of plan of putting pressure on the government of Sheikh Hasina in allowing Indian troops to enter Bangladesh territory for starting joint operations against terrorists, insurgents, militants and criminal elements. This hidden agenda of the Indian government became exposed when Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh's Special Envoy Satinder K Lamba said on April 5 that terrorists and insurgents continue to operate from Bangladesh, despite the government's efforts to contain them.

"There's a need to sustain the current levels of cooperation to jointly eradicate the menace of insurgency, terrorism and militancy from our soil," he said, while delivering the keynote address at the Fourth India-Bangladesh Security Dialogue, organised by the Observer Research Foundation.

Lamba said it was well-known that terrorists, insurgents, militants and criminal elements respect no civilian law and territorial boundaries.

"Some of these groups and their associated agencies continue to have their hideouts and network of fake Indian currency notes in Bangladesh," he said.

He said that India greatly appreciated the efforts of the Bangladesh government in taking actions against such elements operating from that country. Noting that three security-related agreements have already been signed between the two countries, he hoped the Extradition Treaty will be finalised soon to complete the process of putting in place the framework for cooperation on security-related matters.

Lamba said due to the 'porous' nature of the India-Bangladesh border, there has been considerable cross-border criminal activity, including illegal trade in arms and explosives, counterfeit currency, trafficking in narcotics and women and children.

"These problems pose a threat to the social and economic well-being of both India and Bangladesh," he said.

Meanwhile, after the recent seizure of 10 million Indian rupees from Bangladesh by a team of Rapid Action Battalion [RAB] with almost simultaneous bust of fake Indian currency note racket in Nepal, Indian intelligence agencies including Research & Analytical Wing [RAW] is continuing to claim that Pakistan is pumping in counterfeit Indian currency through Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia rather than the traditional routes of Bangladesh and Dubai.

It said, "As part of the tactical switch, Pakistan is also using nationals of the South-east Asian countries to avoid detection. As always, the plot for India's economic subversion is being executed through Mumbai underworld."

On April 4, 2012, acting on the inputs provided by India, the Nepal Police arrested a Vietnamese woman with fake Indian currency note worth RS 9.8 million at Tribhuwan International Airport in Kathmandu. Later, Indian intelligence agencies claimed "the consignment - neatly stuffed in high-end liquor bottles - was delivered to her at Vietnam by conduits working for Pakistani handlers. The consignment was so smartly concealed that it would have gone unnoticed had it not been for specific information provided by India."

The accused, whose name has been withheld by the agency as investigations are still on, had stuffed the currency notes in liquor bottles and packed them neatly in her check-in baggage. To avoid scrutiny she had paid legitimate duty on the liquor.

Sources within Indian intelligence agencies said the woman took a flight from Vietnam and reached Kathmandu via Bangkok. Her arrest has not only revealed a new modus operandi, but also a new route [Pakistan to Nepal via Vietnam] of pumping fake Indian currency note into India.

The sources said the consignment was routed through Vietnam as traditional fake Indian currency note-pumping routes like Bangladesh and Dubai are always on security agencies' radar for. "There is greater screening of passengers coming via Dubai or Bangladesh. One would generally not suspect a Vietnamese coming from her country to be carrying fake currency," said an Intelligence official.

Indian intelligence agencies said, "Pakistan may be using underworld links to pump in money as several dons from Mumbai are now holed up in various South-east Asian nations. Even Dawood Ibrahim has a wide network of operatives spanning Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Sitting in Karachi, he controls a major share of over US$ 2.5 million fake Indian currency note racket in India."

The source further said that the notes are of very high quality, and match with other fake currency consignments coming from Pakistan seized earlier.

A senior intelligence official in India said, "Counterfeiters keep reinventing themselves. The racket had deliberately used a woman as a carrier to avoid suspicion. For instance, the Vietnamese woman had stuffed high-end liquor bottles with fake Indian currency note and neatly packed them. She then paid the required duty on it which made it a legitimate consignment. That is why despite the consignment being in her check-in baggage no one in Vietnam or in Bangkok suspected anything amiss with her luggage."

The official added, "Recently agencies busted a racket in which fake currency was concealed in cigarettes. The accused had removed tobacco and rolled notes into the empty space."

It was not clear as to whether the IRS 10 million consignments, which had been recently seized in Bangladesh by RAB were counterfeit or genuine. Crime experts opined that such seizure might have been planned by the Indian intelligence agencies to justify their demand of starting joint operations of the Indian and Bangladeshi soldiers as well as intelligence agencies with the objective of eliminating anti-Indian operatives in Bangladesh.

They said, Indian authorities might be planning to take fullest advantage of current 'friendly' attitude of the government in Dhaka in ultimately establishing presence of Indian forces within Bangladeshi soil. 

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