By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Bangladesh PM Hasina’s September 5-8 visit here is expected to be dominated by her growing concern over the deepening cross-border movement and activities of suspected Islamic fundamentalists, especially at a time when parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held slightly over a year from now.
India too is likely to express similar anxieties in the backdrop of the arrest of several suspected members of the banned Al-Qaeda in the Indian Sub-continent (AQIS) and Bangladeshi outfits, in West Bengal and Assam over the last three weeks.
While the West Bengal police’s STF nabbed two AQIS members in North 24 Parganas on August 18, the Assam police arrested seven alleged Bangladeshi nationals, suspected to have links with Bangladeshi terror group Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), from Barpeta and Guwahati in the last week of July.
Five others arrested in the same operation had allegedly been recruited by the ABT which, subsequent investigations revealed, were responsible for targeting Bangladeshi bloggers in the past.
Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma indicated that the IB played a significant role in tracking the ABT members who, state police sources revealed, “had entered India illegally” and had travelled to parts of UP, MP, West Bengal and Tripura for the “sole purpose of recruiting and indoctrinating” potential cadres for jihadi and other fundamentalist activities in Bangladesh.
Indian officials said that even as “security mechanisms” exist between Dhaka and New Delhi to share intelligence on cross-border activities and movements of Islamists and other criminal networks, “more clearly needs to be done”.
NEW DELHI: Bangladesh PM Hasina’s September 5-8 visit here is expected to be dominated by her growing concern over the deepening cross-border movement and activities of suspected Islamic fundamentalists, especially at a time when parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held slightly over a year from now.
India too is likely to express similar anxieties in the backdrop of the arrest of several suspected members of the banned Al-Qaeda in the Indian Sub-continent (AQIS) and Bangladeshi outfits, in West Bengal and Assam over the last three weeks.
While the West Bengal police’s STF nabbed two AQIS members in North 24 Parganas on August 18, the Assam police arrested seven alleged Bangladeshi nationals, suspected to have links with Bangladeshi terror group Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), from Barpeta and Guwahati in the last week of July.
Five others arrested in the same operation had allegedly been recruited by the ABT which, subsequent investigations revealed, were responsible for targeting Bangladeshi bloggers in the past.
Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma indicated that the IB played a significant role in tracking the ABT members who, state police sources revealed, “had entered India illegally” and had travelled to parts of UP, MP, West Bengal and Tripura for the “sole purpose of recruiting and indoctrinating” potential cadres for jihadi and other fundamentalist activities in Bangladesh.
Indian officials said that even as “security mechanisms” exist between Dhaka and New Delhi to share intelligence on cross-border activities and movements of Islamists and other criminal networks, “more clearly needs to be done”.
