Tarique, associates had ties with Ulfa chief
Tarique Rahman, acting chairman of BNP, and his associates including then intelligence officials in Bangladesh held ties with the separatist group United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) Commander-in-Chief Paresh Barua, claimed a report published today by India Today.
The report quotes Major General Gaganjit Singh, former deputy director general of India's Defence Intelligence Agency, recalling the 2004 10-truck arms and ammunition haul in Chattogram. Singh claimed that the arms supply was done through the BNP and Jamaat alliance.
Ulfa and a few other rebel organisations in northeast India intended to use the large consignment of weapons seized in Chattogram in April 2004, alleged Maj Gen Singh.
Singh's disclosure in the India Today comes after Anup Chetia, one of the founding leaders of Ulfa, in a recent interview, said the weapons were intended for other rebel groups in addition to his group. Chetia was arrested in Dhaka in 1997. He was the general secretary of Ulfa at the time.
Singh alleged that the architect of the entire conspiracy to get weaponry in order to intensify the separatist campaign in India's Assam was Ulfa Commander-in-Chief Paresh Barua.
"But he was operating in close coordination with the DGFI and some NSI officials who had close links with Tarique Rahman and his cronies in what was then referred to as Hawa Bhaban (political office of BNP)," the ex-intel officer claimed.
The huge consignment of arms were being supplied, taking advantage of the BNP-Jamaat alliance, using Bangladesh "as a sanctuary," Singh was quoted by India Today.
According to former BBC correspondent Subir Bhaumik, who reported on the Chattogram arms haul, Singh was closely involved in the operation to trace the passage of the weapons consignment.
"During the last regime of the BNP-Jamaat coalition government (2001-2006), Hawa Bhaban earned notoriety as the most secured influential and alternative power house from where Tarique, with his handpicked set of 'crooked' confidants, happened to give green light to a number of nefarious plots, including the grenade attack on then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina," the report read.
The India Today report quotes Singh as saying, "Paresh Barua was operating from a hotel in GEC Mor in Chittagong, not far from field intelligence unit of the DGFI. We had all the details of the arrival of the weapons at the CUFL jetty." His sources in Bangladesh informed the police that the arms consignment had landed, adds the report.
"The police had no idea this was meant for Ulfa and other rebels because the DGFI had been secretive about the whole operation. As the police swung into action to seize the weapons, the media also rushed in. The whole thing blew up on the face of the BNP government," Singh said.
Detailed examination of the 10-truck arms haul case verdict and mainstream media reports point to hardcore radicals chosen and facilitated by Tarique, who enjoyed the highest level of official patronage to carry out such heinous schemes, the report claimed.
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