BENGAL BEING USED AS BASE T0 PUSH TERRORISTS FROM BANGLADESH INTO INDIA

Many of these infiltrators work as migrant labourers and brainwash the gullible.

- DIBYENDU MONDAL

The increasing presence of extremists linked to terrorist organisations in Bangladesh, from across the border districts of West Bengal, has become a cause for worry for both the Central and State intelligence agencies.

The West Bengal Special Task Force (STF), tasked with catching extremists in the state, has said that the infiltration of extremists and brainwashed individuals through the porous Indo-Bangladesh border has created an unprecedented situation in the border districts of Bengal, particularly in the districts of North and South 24 Parganas, Malda and Murshidabad.

In the recent past, several individuals linked to Al Qaeda and JMB (JamaatUl-Mujahideen-Bangladesh) have been arrested by the West Bengal STF, the intelligence wing of the West Bengal police within the Bengal police and intelligence agencies say that information about at least three modules of the Al Qaeda, tasked to spread terror on the Indian subcontinent have been received.

The last few months also saw at least seven people linked to these terrorist organisations being arrested by the Bengal police from across various parts of the country. Sources in the West Bengal intelligence agencies told The Sunday Guardian that "jihadi elements" are being pushed into India through the Bangladesh border in the wee hours and post reaching India, they are being given shelter in Indian households of individuals linked to extremist ideologies across the border.