With the crackdown on northeastern militants and handing over of Ulfa political boss Arabinda Rajkhowa, the stage is set for a successful India visit of Bangladesh prime minister (PM) Sheikh Hasina later this month.
Hasina and her Awami League have always had excellent ties with India, but she had failed to deliver on her promises during her earlier term as PM. In fact, New Delhi was often exasperated at Hasina looking over her shoulder at her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) rival Begum Khaleda Zia. Afraid of BNP criticism that she was an Indian stooge, there was no movement on issues critical to India.
Indian officials are pleasantly surprised at the new turn of events. “A key factor is the prevailing international atmosphere against extremists of all denominations,” a senior official said.
“Another key factor was the conspiracy by fundamentalists to destabilise the new government,” the official explained, referring to the mutiny by sections in the Bangladesh Rifles against the army and the massacre of scores of army officers which later turned out to be a conspiracy to unsettle Hasina’s newly-formed democratic government.
After the mutiny, the administration seriously cracked down on terrorists. The army and paramilitary forces were purged of suspected jihadi elements that had infiltrated the forces in large numbers during the BNP regime when the Jamaat was part of the grand coalition.
The government is now ridding the intelligence and security wings of fundamentalists. There is an urgency to take action not just against Jamaat loyalists, but also against all northeastern extremist outfits, which have long taken advantage of Bangladesh’s lax ways.
But it is not just the northeastern insurgent groups that have used Bangladesh for anti-India activities. Pakistan’s ISI has also repeatedly taken advantage of the open borders between India and Nepal and Bangladesh to export terror.
India is hopeful that with Bangladesh willing to cooperate, at least one section of the eastern border can be secured. One of the three memoranda of understandings (MoU) that will be signed during Hasina’s visit is cooperation against international terror groups and drug lords. An MoU on legal assistance, which will be an umbrella agreement to apprehend terrorists and smugglers as also gunrunners, is also on the cards.
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