‘Bangladesh is sheltering militants’

SHILLONG: With elections round the corner, Bangladesh has assured safe havens to top northeast militant leaders sheltering in the country and has asked them not to move out till the end of the poll process, a senior BSF officer said on Saturday.

“All major leaders of the ULFA, ATTF and NLFT (in Bangladesh) have been given a safe place and have been asked not to move out till the elections are over,” Jyoti Prakash Sinha, BSF’s Inspector General for the Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur and Nagaland Frontier, said.

According to National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, ULFA’s leaders were “captives in Bangladesh” and “perhaps acting on the dictates of a foreign power”.

In view of elections and disturbance in the neighbouring country, all forces in Bangladesh have fanned out to border areas and the situation there was keeping them “busy”, Sinha said.

The Bangladesh polls will not have much impact in the northeastern region but in view of the situation in the neighbouring country, BSF personnel have been put on high alert along the border and “vulnerable areas” have been reinforced.

The reinforcement is aimed at preventing infiltration from Bangladesh and also to stop militants from fleeing to that country following intensive operations launched by the army in the wake of the killing of migrant workers in Assam by the ULFA.