Borders Of Blood

Apparently they fire “criminals violating border norms”, said the BSF DG in 2010.

These incidents are normal, happen all the time and the state has no serious concern about this, says the LGRD minister of the ruling party.

These incidents should not be “hyped” by media, says the Indian Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee in India.

Possibly Bangladesh is the only country where lives have lesser value tags attached to them when compared to the value of the cattle crossing the border. Possibly Bangladesh is the only country where the powerful need to be protected and the powerless killed in order to maintain a balance of survival.

In the border areas, there seems to be a complete impertinence to life and norms. Cattle trade being illegal in India, almost 20000 cows are herded and sold from Punjab, Bihar and Haryana to Bangladesh through Murshidabad alone. Caught up in the game of the brokers (dalals), and the owner (ghatiyal), the labourer (rakhal) is the one who profits the least and gets hit the most. The brokers comprise of all shapes and sizes, starting from BSF, police and custom officials’ category. They are known as the “Commission”. When cows are at times caught on the border, they are often sold back to the owner at a higher price instead of a legal auction.

The 2216 kilometres of India’s borders with Bangladesh are death traps for Bangladeshis today. Rakhals carry blue and yellow chits with different symbols drawn on them indicating that they have a “passport” to pass through the borders. They are safe, meaning that both police and customs have received their fair share.

In spite of all that open knowledge, I don’t know how any Bangladeshi minister can show indifference to murder; I don’t know why the political parties don’t invest on a BSF march instead of Tipaimukh, Teesta and many others that we watch these days.

With Odhikar’s figure of slain Bangladeshis standing at a 39 and Ain-o-Shalish Kendro’s at a 31 in 2011 alone, how can the BSF bullets be justified by citing irrelevant examples of drug and cattle smuggling? Mr. Syed Ashraful Islam, how can illegal trade cost life? If so, how come the biggest scoundrels and smugglers of Bangladesh still ride on their SUVs and befriend political parties and eventually even become part of them and get elected in the process? What systems are we subscribing to, Mr. Islam? Are we applying for permanent positions in the club of the corrupt and blind? And will you take responsibility of your statement of the government “not being worried”?

I was speaking to a bright, young girl yesterday who had organised a lot of young voter movements during the last elections. Hurt and distraught, she sat in front of me, talking about the 22-year-old Rasheduzzaman from Sharsha Upazila who was shot dead by the BSF just the other day. I had no words to restore her faith in democratic process that often breeds monsters in place of responsible lawmakers.

How could BSF, within a few days after the Indian media had just aired the scenes of gruesome torture of a Bangladeshi youth, repeat the same act? To the best of my knowledge, BSF cannot claim impunity and can only fire in self-defence. Are we really expected to believe that the illegal traders have more strength than the ‘border beasts’ that kill them in retaliation?

I humbly suggest that we put up a wall etching the names of the fallen at the hands of the BSF at a significant point in Dhaka. Let this memorial wall be erected somewhere near our diplomatic zone where every diplomat crossing the installation will take time and reflect on the hurt that the citizens of this country suffer because of Indian insensitivities and aggression.

I couldn’t sleep last night. I didn’t even have nightmares. I simply stayed awake thinking of the families who lost their children to BSF. I also played out scenes in my head reflecting the torture that is no less than the Americans torturing at Abu Ghraib, no less than the British torturing the Iraqis, and no less than the Pakistanis raping us in 1971. If we could once, as a nation, come together and fight against atrocities, let us not falter and fail our conscience today.

Let us carefully reflect on the reality: while the lions in the borders roar, how and why should we grant access to the same people behind the lines waiting to access our transit points? They need to control their beasts first before wanting a substantial share of our resources. Should that not be the case, after all?

While teenagers like the 14-year-old Jinnah wanting a little more money for their pockets get into deals with the traders on the borders, carry out their missions and earn as less as Tk 2000.00 per crossing, and while they save as much as Tk 6000.00 in three trips and buy jeans and a mobile phone storing at least 200 songs, including hits like “Paglu”, who should we blame when they receive bullets piercing through their necks, exiting through their backs?

Is it illegal trading or our own insensitivities that grant audacity to our big brother in the block?

BY :  Rubana Huq.

Beijing ready for connectivity with Dhaka thru’ Myanmar

China says Bangladesh's proposeddeep seaport in Sonadia Island is of strategic importance to the country and ishelpful to become the regional transportation and logistic centre.

''So long Bangladesh side showsenough will and determination, this project can obtain positive progress verysoon,'' outgoing Chinese Ambassador Zhang Xianyi made the remarks in hispre-departure interview with UNB on Saturday.

During Prime Minister SheikhHasina's visit to Beijing last year, Bangladesh sought the Chinese assistanceto build the deep seaport. The Ambassador said Chinese enterprises haveadvanced technologies, equipments and ample funds.

He said China Harbour EngineeringCompany Ltd., having rich experience in this sector, has set up its office inDhaka and is ready to participate in this project in commercial manner. Xianyisaid Chinese enterprises are also ready to cooperate with enterprises from othercountries to jointly take part in this project.

Asked about the much talked abouttri-nation road and rail links, he said China stands ready to work togetherwith Bangladesh and Myanmar to establish the road and railway links among thethree countries at an earlier date.

"There are already severalroutes that connect China and Myanmar. For routes between Bangladesh andMyanmar, I hope Bangladesh can have more consultation with Myanmar to push thisprocess forward.''

The Ambassador said the Chineseside always attaches importance to the connectivity among China, Bangladesh andMyanmar. "'We believe, this is conducive to the economic, cultural, peopleto people links, and to peace and stability of this region.''

Asked about Chinese assistance indredging of riverbeds in Bangladesh, Ambassador Xianyi said that against thebackdrop of climate change, river dredging becomes even more important. Eachyear, the Chinese government provides training to Bangladeshi officials andtechnicians, he said.

On September last year, he saidChina Harbour Engineering Company Ltd was selected to implement a project forJamuna River dredging (14 kms).

Asked about the construction ofthe 7th and 8th Friendship Bridges, the ambassador said that the constructioncontract on the 7th China-Bangladesh Friendship Bridge at Kajirtek was signedon January 3 this year and the works will start very soon.

About the 8th Friendship Bridge,he said consultations are going on between the two countries and hopefully,there will be a positive result soon.

Asked about bilateral trade andeconomic cooperation, Xianyi said the two-way trade volume in the first 11months of 2011 reached US$ 7.5 billion with an increase of 21.3 percentcompared with the same period in 2010.

Bangladesh's export to Chinareached US$ 400 million, an increase of 79.5 percent, while the Chineseinvestment in Bangladesh in 2011 amounted to more than $ 200 million.

Ambassador Xianyi said Bangladeshand China signed agreements on introduction of 3G technology and expansion of2.5G network as well as construction of Shahjalal Fertilizer Factory. Theconstruction work will start very soon. Besides, China exempted debts ofBangladesh worth more than 600 million RMB.

Asked about providing duty-freeaccess to more Bangladesh products, the Ambassador said that since July 1,2010,China began offering zero tariff treatment to 4,762 Bangladesh products,covering 70 percent of Bangladesh exports to China.

As a result, he said Bangladesh'sexport to China has increased by 91 percent in 2010 and 79.5 percent in 2011."As next step, China will increase this ratio to 97 percent,'' he said,adding Bangladeshi businesses can make full use of widely open Chinese marketand increase their exports to China.

Replying to a question abouteasing visa regime for Bangladeshi businessmen and tourists, Xianyi said theChinese embassy has already eased the visa procedure for Bangladeshi businesscommunity.

In 2011, the Embassy of Chinaissued visas to more than 20,000 Bangladesh citizens.

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INDIA: To end Indian BSF violence what more does it require?

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and its partner organisation, the Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), have been documenting and reporting cases of extreme forms of brutality committed by the Border Security Force (BSF) stationed along the Indo-Bangladesh border in West Bengal state. The latest is a video of extreme torture by the BSF of a civilian that reportedly happened on 16 January 2012. The video shows blood-chilling torture, committed by the BSF. The incident is a shame and the brutality documented alarming, suggesting that the officers require psychiatric assistance, a condition that challenges their very legitimacy to guard the country's border.

Since the past eight years, MASUM is reporting directly and through international human rights organisations like the AHRC, cases against the BSF to the Indian authorities. So far MASUM has reported about 800 cases. These are cases of torture and other forms of custodial violence, rape, murder, extortion and corruption. The AHRC is not aware of any open and credible action taken against any of the officers mentioned in these cases, though every possible detail has been provided to the authorities.

Every case report includes a narrative of the incident, the name of the BSF officers involved, that of the outpost and battalion where the officers were stationed, the name of the police station having jurisdiction over the place where the incident happened, the name of the witnesses and their statements as recorded by MASUM, and the name and other details of the victim. This information is sent to officers, including but not limited to the Director General of the BSF, Union Home Minister, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the Chief Minister and Home Minister of West Bengal, Inspector General of Police and the District Magistrate having jurisdiction upon the area where the incident happened. These cases reported globally are available at AHRC's Urgent Appeals website where cases from India are reported.

Each one of these communication calls for specific actions to be taken in the incident, at the very minimum, recording the complaint of the victim and the statements of the witnesses. However, according to the information available to the AHRC, not in a single case the BSF command has initiated a credible enquiry or taken effective corrective measures against the officers. Neither has the BSF nor the government cared to acknowledge the receipt of these communications. The response from the NHRC also has been thus far disheartening.

The NHRC's action is always to direct the state police to investigate the case. The reports prepared by the West Bengal state police, always absolve the BSF from responsibility and accuses the victim as a cross-border smuggler or someone who tried attacking the BSF, when stopped for questioning. The AHRC and MASUM have been repeatedly contenting that such reports are farce and would do further damage to the morale of the BSF and of the people living along the Indo-Bangladesh border. The proof is the video.

It is a cruel joke, that the Raninagar police have claimed that they have not investigated the incident, as late as today, since they are yet to get a complaint regarding the event. Perhaps the West Bengal police have a new Criminal Procedure Code that requires them to receive a formal complaint to act upon a gruesome crime. Or is the response underlining the fact that the state police always shy away from taking any action against the BSF? The AHRC has been requesting the Government of West Bengal that it should seriously consider the fact that the rank and file of the state police stationed in areas where the BSF operates is suffering from a high degree of demoralisation.

When the video was aired yesterday through local television channels in West Bengal, the administration has taken 'action'. This is the suspension of eight BSF officers and the transferring of the District Magistrate (DM) and the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Murshidabad district. While the response is appreciated, the AHRC is of the opinion that this is not enough.

The official defensive statement by the BSF, that the video could be as old as 15 years, is nothing but irresponsibility in print. The security agency that is mandated to protect the country's border should have the minimum knowledge, that mobile telephones with a camera, now though common, was exceptionally rare 15 years ago. The BSF does not have a case that their officers exposed in the video are serving in the same outpost for the past 15 years. If the video is not of an incident that happened on 16 January, then on what reason was the officers stationed at Charmurasi border outpost suspended?

The video shows officers, identifiable in person, violating every code of their operative mandate, in some of the most brutal and inhuman manner. It shows the alarming wilt of discipline among the officers. Any agency, having such sick officers posted on duty has serious reasons to consider overhauling its operative structure to ensure basic discipline. In the BSF however, such actions are unlikely to happen. At the most the case would end, probably after a decade, with some punitive actions taken against the officers who are now placed under suspension.

The DM and the SP, of Murshidabad should have known that such incidents are common. They cannot content otherwise, since the MASUM and the AHRC together have sent these officers some 800 cases during the past eight years. These two officers have the legal responsibility to answer for what is in the video since had their office been diligent enough such incidents would not have repeated. In a case reported by the AHRC and MASUM on 19 October 2012, the victim in the case was stoned to death by the BSF. The incident happened within the jurisdiction of Raninagar Police Station. No action has been taken on this case so far. The details of the case are available at AHRC-UAC-210-2011.

The Inspector General (IG) of the BSF is also responsible for the incident since the IG's office is bound by 'command responsibility'. In the same vein, the Inspector-General commanding the South Bengal Frontier unit of the BSF and the Commandant and under whom the officers involved in the incident served are also to be punished. Command responsibility is no legal fiction. It is legal norm, which applies in this case without exception.

Most importantly the question that needs to be answered now is that what allows the BSF to perpetuate such horrendous forms of violence against unarmed civilians? Had the BSF been operating in compliance with the Border Security Force Act, 1968 and its Rules 1969, such incidents would not have happened. It shows that discipline and commitment to duty is not ensured within the rank and file in the force. Violence by the BSF against unarmed civilians and other forms of corruption and crimes committed by the BSF with impunity is a threat to the border security of the nation. Such a BSF is a threat to the entire country.

If experience were of any value, one need to see whether, at least in this occasion there would be a transparent investigation and adjudication. If national security is of any interest to the government, it should prove it by taking actions in all cases reported to the government, of crimes committed by the BSF. The AHRC is willing to once again submit to the Government of India a dossier containing details of the cases documented by the AHRC involving the BSF.

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Dhaka ignores Chidambaram’s praises and promises

In the Northeast States Business Summit held recently, Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram has said a lot of good things about Bangladesh that is music for any Bangladeshi’s ear. He has complemented Sheikh Hasina for her “vision and statesmanship” that he said has brought Bangladesh and India as close as the two countries were in 1971.  He has also assured Bangladesh that the Indian Government is going to grant us most preferred nation (MFN) status. He said: “It is India’s responsibility to ensure that capital flows from India to Bangladesh to start businesses.” to make Bangladesh the hub of business and investment in the region. One could not miss in Mr. Chidambaram’s statements the echo of what Dr. Gowhar Rizvi had been telling us before the failed visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Dhaka.

Any Bangladeshi heart would crave to believe Indian Home Minister. However, the head of the same Bangladeshi receives a different message; a message of caution. The reasons are obvious. Take for instance the Home Minister and his credibility on issues of substance to Bangladesh. He is the Home Minister of India but making promises that are not for him to make. Granting MFN status or businesses and investments are not his responsibilities. Then, this is the same Minister who came to Dhaka in July last year and promised zero tolerance on killings of innocent Bangladeshis in the border by the BSF; a commitment that has not been kept.


As the Home Minister, Mr. Chidambaram understands more than any other Indian Minister the true value of the seven ULFA terrorists that Bangladesh secretly handed over to the Indian security.  The Indian media had then strongly urged its Government to give Bangladesh whatever it expected from India for this security cooperation. Yet, in subsequent negotiations, there was no recognition of this major gift from Bangladesh. The Indian Government also failed to reciprocate another major gift from Bangladesh, namely land transit, that former Indian Foreign Secretary Muchkund Dubey considers of “supreme significance” to Indian in general, and the Northeast States in particular.

Instead, under Chidambaram’s watch, the Indian BSF still continues to kill innocent Bangladeshis on the border. Still, the Indian Government continues to point fingers at those who are the victims, asking questions why in the first place were they in the border. They conveniently forget while giving such explanations that it is the Home Minister who had committed his government to zero tolerance to killings of innocent Bangladeshis by the BSF. He had said that BSF would use rubber bullets in place of live ones.

One has to wonder whether these Indian Ministers realize that people in Bangladesh have memories; that on the trust factor, people in Bangladesh are no longer confident whether India can be trusted to keep promises/commitments/ agreements it makes.  The Indian Ministers, unlike ours, do not say anything just for the sake of saying. Their statements in public, particularly those aimed at another country, are made with good reasons.  Hence, Chidambaram is well aware of feelings in Bangladesh about India because of its failure to reciprocate to the concessions made by Bangladesh on security and land transit. Yet he went ahead and made new promises to Bangladesh, renewed old ones and reiterated India’s good feelings and friendship for us for good reasons. He also chose the Northeast States business summit to make this statement for equally good reasons.

The Northeast States of India stands to gain in a major way from Bangladesh’s decision to grant India land transit.  The trial run that Bangladesh granted to India has already shown the Northeast States what a big role Bangladesh can play in their future. In fact, the Tripura Chief Minister was gaga talking to the media when he had accompanied the Indian Prime Minister on his visit while explaining how Bangladesh’s cooperation to build the power plant in his state has opened vast economic opportunities for Tripura.

That trial run now needs to be renewed and made long term. The Indians have officially written to the Bangladesh Government in this regard. This time, however, there is a marked change in Bangladesh’s response. Up to the visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Dhaka, Bangladesh’s negotiators were the ones excited about the benefits that Bangladesh would reap as a consequence of Indian friendship. In fact, it was Dr. Gowhar Rizvi who was telling us what Chidambaram has said in his statement in the Northeast Summit. Dr. Rizvi, the Foreign Minister and Dr. Mashiur Rahman are no longer making the strong statements about friendship with India or the benefits such friendship would bring for Bangladesh.

India’s ability  to deliver on its promises on Teesta and Tippaimukh; continued killings in the border and insensitivity in the way the Titash River has been defiled during the trial land transit run  have combined to take away the enthusiasm of the Bangladesh negotiators who were earlier showing the willingness to give the Indians anything without even being asked.  This time, the reluctance to grant India extension on the land transit is coming from the bureaucracy. Legal questions are being raised at the desk levels of the Government Ministries concerned where the Ministers and Advisers are no longer in a position to favour India at will anymore. No doubt, the message has finally sunk, thanks to the role of the media, that Bangladesh should not give India one more inch till India shows it can be trusted.

The economics of land transit, that Bangladesh would become rich as the connectivity hub of the region, has thus lost its appeal in Bangladesh. The concept of connectivity hub was very cleverly articulated by the Indians to make land transit acceptable in Bangladesh. Thanks to Dr. Rizvi, Dr. Rahman and Dipu Moni, we were led to believe that we were indeed going to gain economically in a major way as the connectivity hub of the region. By doing nothing on promises and commitments made on issues such as Teesta, Tippaimukh and border killings, the Indians have just not let their friends in Bangladesh down; they have helped strengthen the perception articulated by the opposition political parties in Bangladesh led by the BNP that India is not trust worthy. From being a BNP feeling, the factor of India and trust is becoming more widely acceptable across the political divide.

In fact, in the three years of AL rule, India’s failure to reciprocate has taken the wind out of the sail of those championing the Indian cause in the Bangladesh Government. More importantly in the process, India has put into jeopardy the great window of opportunity that Sheikh Hasina had opened for Indian Northeast States. It is not just the prospects of these states that are in jeopardy; in jeopardy too is the possibility of a paradigm shift of Bangladesh-India relations that Sheikh Hasina’s courageous decisions to unilaterally grant India land transit and security cooperation had created.

Bangladesh thus has no reason to take seriously Mr. Chidambaram’s offers of MFN, of making Bangladesh rich as the connectivity and investment hub unless it wants to be misled again. His statement was also made to send a message to the Northeast States that it is seriously pursuing with Bangladesh for its economic future. Nevertheless, it is time for India to do its share for the gifts and concessions that it has accepted from Bangladesh. It needs to sign the Teesta agreement without any further delay and abandon the Tippaimukh project. It needs to show not by promise but by deed that it would not kill innocent Bangladeshis any more on the border. Only then it should ask for the extension of the land transit and furthers security cooperation from Bangladesh. Public opinion has significantly shifted for the Bangladesh Government to grant any further concessions/gifts to India.

In fact, unwittingly, the ruling party has created for itself a significant baggage looking ahead into the next elections. The India factor seems likely to become major hurdle in the next elections for the ruling party because it has given to India major concessions without receiving from India what it expected. 

Chidambaram’s sugar-coated statements have thus been largely ignored in Bangladesh, even by those who consider it our national duty to do whatever India wants. By its greed and small heartedness, India has pushed Sheikh Hasina into a corner. She cannot now allow India extension on the trial run without placing her party and her own political credibility at peril.

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BY :  M. Serajul Islam.

India's secret war in Bangladesh

Even as the role of the Indian military in giving birth to the new nation is celebrated, the role of its intelligence services remains largely unknown.

Forty-five minutes before 12.00 pm on December 14, 1971, Indian Air Force pilots at Hashimpara and Gauhati received instructions to attack an unusual target: a sprawling colonial-era building in the middle of Dacca that had no apparent military value whatsoever. 

There were nothing but tourist maps available to guide the pilots to their target — but the results were still lethal. The first wave of combat jets, four MiG21 jets armed with rockets, destroyed a conference hall; two more MiGs and two Hunter bombers levelled a third of the main building. 

Inside the building — the Government House — East Pakistan's Cabinet had begun an emergency meeting to discuss the political measures to avoid the looming surrender of their army at Dacca 55 minutes before the bombs hit. It turned out to be the last-ever meeting of the Cabinet. A.M. Malik, head of the East Pakistan government, survived the bombing along with his Cabinet — but resigned on the spot, among the burning ruins; the nervous system, as it were, of decision-making had been destroyed. 

For years now, military historians have wondered precisely how the Government House was targeted with such precision; rumours that a spy was present have proliferated. From the still-classified official history of the 1971 war, we now know the answer. Indian cryptanalysts, or code-breakers, had succeeded in breaking Pakistan's military cipher — giving the country's intelligence services real-time information on the enemy's strategic decision-making. 

India's Army, Navy and Air Force were lauded, during the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of Bangladesh's independence, for their role in ending a genocide and giving birth to a new nation. The enormous strategic contribution of India's intelligence services, however, has gone largely unacknowledged. 

Seven months before the December 3 Pakistan Air Force raid that marked the beginning of the war, India's Chief of Army Staff issued a secret order to the General Officer Commanding, Eastern Command, initiating the campaign that would end with the dismemberment of Pakistan. 

Operation Instruction 52 formally committed the Indian forces to “assist the Provisional Government of Bangladesh to rally the people of East Bengal in support of the liberation movement,” and “to raise, equip and train East Bengal cadres for guerrilla operations for employment in their own native land.” 

The Eastern Command was to ensure that the guerrilla forces were to work towards “tying down the Pak [Pakistan] Military forces in protective tasks in East Bengal,” “sap and corrode the morale of the Pak forces in the Eastern theatre and simultaneously to impair their logistic capability for undertaking any offensive against Assam and West Bengal,” and, finally, be used along with the regular Indian troops “in the event of Pakistan initiating hostilities against us.” 

Secret army

The task of realising these orders fell on Sujan Singh Uban. Brigadier — later Major-General — Uban was an artillery officer who had been handpicked to lead the Special Frontier Force, a secret army set up decades earlier with the assistance of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency to harry the Chinese forces in Tibet. The SFF, which until recently served as a kind of armed wing of India's external covert service, the Research and Analysis Wing, never did fight in China. In Bangladesh, the contributions of its men and officers would be invaluable. 

Brigadier Uban — whose enthusiasm for irregular warfare was rivalled, contemporaries recall, only by his eccentric spiritualism — later said he had received a year's advance warning of the task that lay ahead from the Bengali mystic, Baba Onkarnath. 

Less-than-holy war 

The war he waged, though, was less-than-holy. In July 1971, India's war history records, the first Bangladesh irregulars were infiltrated across the border at Madaripur. This first group of 110 guerrillas destroyed tea gardens, riverboats and railway tracks — acts that tied down troops, undermined East Pakistan's economy and, the history says, destroyed “communications between Dhaka, Comilla and Chittagong.” 

Much of the guerrilla war, however, was waged by the volunteers of the Gano Bahini, a volunteer force. The Indian forces initially set up six camps for recruiting and training volunteers, which were soon swamped. At one camp, some 3,000 young men had to wait up to two months for induction, although the “hygienic condition was pitiable and food and water supply almost non-existent.” 

By September 1971, though, Indian training operations had expanded dramatically in scale, processing a staggering 20,000 guerrillas each month. Eight Indian soldiers were committed to every 100 trainees at 10 camps. On the eve of the war, at the end of November 1971, over 83,000 Gano Bahini fighters had been trained, 51,000 of whom were operating in East Pakistan — a guerrilla operation perhaps unrivalled in scale until that time. In the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Brigadier Uban sent in Indian soldiers or, to be more exact, CIA-trained, Indian-funded Tibetans using hastily-imported Bulgarian assault rifles and U.S.-manufactured carbines to obscure their links to India. Fighting under the direct command of RAW's legendary spymaster Rameshwar Kao, Brig. Uban's forces engaged in a series of low-grade border skirmishes. 

Founded in 1962, the SFF had originally been called Establishment 22 — and still has a road named after it in New Delhi, next to the headquarters of the Defence Ministry. The organisation received extensive special operations training from the U.S., as part of a package of military assistance. In September 1967, the control of these assets was formally handed over to RAW — and used in Bangladesh to lethal effect. 

From December 3, 1971, Brig. Uban's force began an extraordinary campaign of sabotage and harassment. At the cost of just 56 dead and 190 wounded, the SFF succeeded in destroying several key bridges, and in ensuring that Pakistan's 97 Independent Brigade and crack 2 Commando Battalion remained bogged down in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Some 580 members of Brig. Uban's covert force were awarded cash, medals and prizes by the Government of India. 

November 1971 saw the Indian-backed low-intensity war in East Pakistan escalate to levels Pakistan found intolerable — pushing it to act. On December 3, Pakistan attempted to relieve the pressure on its eastern wing by carrying out strikes on major Indian airbases. India retaliated with an offensive of extraordinary speed that has been described as a “blitzkrieg without tanks.” 

Rejecting an offer for conditional surrender in the East, the Indian forces entered Dacca on December 15. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi promptly ordered a ceasefire on the western front as well: “if I don't do so today,” she said of the decision to end the war, “I shall not be able to do so tomorrow.”

How important was the covert war to this victory, and what cost did it come at? 

India's new communications intelligence technologies were clearly critical; three decades on, the government would be advised to make fuller accounts public, and publicly honour the anonymous cryptanalysts who achieved so much. 

The 1971 war history records that their efforts meant “several important communications and projections of the Pak[istani] high command were intercepted, decoded and suitable action [was] taken.” Indian communications interception, the history states, even prevented a last-minute effort to evacuate the Pakistani troops from Dacca, using five disguised merchant ships. 

The role of irregular forces, though, needs a more nuanced assessment. There is no doubt that they served to tie down Pakistani troops, and derail their logistical backbone. They were also, however, responsible for large-scale human rights abuses targeting Pakistani sympathisers and the ethnic Bihari population. There is no moral equivalence between these crimes and those of the Pakistani armed forces in 1971 — but the fact also is that the irregular forces bequeathed to Bangladesh a militarised political culture that would have deadly consequences of its own. 

India's secret war in Bangladesh would have served little purpose without a conventional, disciplined military force to secure a decisive victory — a lesson of the utility and limitations of sub-conventional warfare that ought to be closely studied today by the several states that rely on these tactics. 

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