Satchhari arms haul
THE discovery by Rab on Tuesday of a huge cache of arms and ammunition stashed inside a concrete bunker at Satchhari reserve forest close to Bangladesh-India border in Habiganj is deeply unsettling. It is commendable that the special crime fighting force Rab has been able to home in on this secret arms depot.
Considering the size of the stockpile and massive network of concrete tunnels built to store it, it appears that those behind this sinister scheme had perhaps been working at it over a long period of time.
The kinds of arms found which include rocket launcher chargers and anti-tank rocket shells evidently point to the nature, capacity and organizational strength of their purveyors and users. At the same time, it also exposes the porosity of our border areas as well as the weakness of our border guards in terms of their manpower, logistics and intelligence surveillance.
It is worthwhile to note that investigators of the Bogra ammunition haul of 2003 found that the ammunition was bound for this Satchhari forest. Moreover, they discovered its link to the Indian insurgent groups National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). So, one is led to suggest that similar insurgent groups may have been engaged in this huge build-up of weaponry.
The Satchhari arms haul should be a wake up call for the government. While the government must mount massive search to find out the sinister network responsible for this arms stockpile, it must also enhance the oversight capacity of the border guards with better logistics, increased manpower and greater mobility.
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