The spectre of ISI

Introduction: Parameters of vote-bank politics seemed to have prevailed upon the Vajpayee regime to abandon the widely drummed up white paper on ISI, says N K Pant

Almost two years have elapsed when Union home minister L K Advani went to public on his government’s determination to publish a ‘white paper’ on the Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence’s (ISI) activities in India and place it in the Parliament. The aim of the exercise was to acquaint the nation in particular and the world community in general about the meticulously planned agenda of the ISI in fomenting cross-border terrorism in India. In between, several dastardly acts like blowing up of a train at Jalpaiguri, West Bengal carrying soldiers, a shameful hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight, have been brazenly engineered. In addition, scores of ISI hirelings have been nabbed, latest being Abdul Jalil aka Belal Mian, the Bangladeshi ISI mastermind who played a key role in getting one of the hijackers to cross over to India.

It is high time that the modus operandi of the ISI and its frontal outfits in the country is exposed to make the public sensitive to the looming terrorist threat. Alas, it is not to be so. The parameters of vote bank politics seemed to have prevailed upon the BJP-led coalition government at the Centre to abandon the preparation of the widely drummed up document.

In view of the growing ISI ghost, it is not surprising to find the 1999-2000 annual home ministry report painting a very grim picture of the internal security matter. The ongoing jehadi mayhem sponsored by the ISI in Jammu and Kashmir, active assistance to the Northeastern insurgents and ideology-clad armed Left wing extremism in Andhra, MP, Bihar and Orissa pose a grave challenge to the unity and integrity of the nation. The decade-long proxy war alone so far has reportedly claimed about 50,000 military, police and civilian lives and rendered more than 3,50,000 homeless while the extensive loss to private and public property is pegged at Rs 2,500 crore. Approximately the ISI has smuggled into the country over 70,000 sophisticated automatic weapons and more than 60,000 kg of RDX explosives. Particularly, meticulous attention has been paid to J&K where it has been ceaselessly trying to alienate the local people using the religious card. In the NE, it has utilised menacingly large number of Bangladeshi infiltrators to destabilise the region. Moreover, the ISI has sheltered hard core Punjab militants to resuscitate militancy in Punjab. Its undercover tricksters’ latest strategy appears to be to flood India with fake currencies.

Earlier, the ISI’s activities were mainly confined to some parts of the Northern India, particularly western UP, J&K and Punjab, besides the NE. But in the recent years, it has spread its tentacles into South as well and is said to have placed its operatives in major cities. In the aftermath of the Coimbatore bomb blasts in early 1998, Army’s Southern Command during the proceedings of a periodical civil and military liaison conference held in Hyderabad had voiced serious concerns on increasing ISI activities in the South. The Army is of the view that the agency which is seeking to build up new bases in the South through local outfits such as AI Umma, is prompt to capitalise on any known or perceived grievances of the Muslims, besides, establishing extensive links with criminal elements.

The Army assessed that arms, ammunition and narcotics were also finding their way to Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Kerala. The agency is also working overtime to spread communal edge in the South so far not affected by the virus. Lashkar-e-Toiba, a well kwon Pakistani fundamentalist outfit, is reported to have tried to establish its foothold in Hyderabad to recruit local youths to be sent to Pakistan.

The ISI’s covert operations along the Indo-Nepal and Bangladesh borders have already created vulnerable chinks on the nation’s internal security armour and beckon for urgent countermeasures. According to information recently tabled in Parliament, the Pak agency is indulging in anti-India activities, including induction of vulnerable youths into their ranks from the areas around the Indo-Nepal border. It has long been an open secret and is now belatedly being acknowledged internationally that the ISI has been running terrorist camps in Bangladesh to assist the militants in Assam and other NE states. A determined covert assault by ISI sympathisers within the narrow strip of land between Assam and West Bengal, if not stemmed effectively, can severe India’s links with the entire NE. In Assam, some cases have even come to light where the ISI surrogates had succeeded in getting themselves enrolled in the Indian Army after obtaining fake ration cards and citizenships. There were even media reports that Ulfa leader Paresh Barua travelled to Islamabad with a Bangladeshi passport and met Gen Pervez Musharraf. The ISI centre in Dakha is believed to be despatching Islamic mercenaries to the trouble J&K to further bolster militancy there.

It is a well-known fact that the ISI has widely spread its network and succeeded in creating safe sanctuaries in every nook and corner of India with an ultimate aim of its balkanisation. Otherwise where do thousands of Pakistanis vanish after arriving in India every year ostentatiously on a visit to their relatives?

A majority of them assume the role of silent workers planted in key locations to be activated later to act as conduits for espionage, subversion, terrorism, smuggling, drug trafficking, gun running, igniting communal riots and flooding the Indian markets with’ fake currencies. It is sad that the present BJP-led government that pretends to be a bold, courageous and decisive coalition, has incredibly dithered on its earlier decision to publish the white paper on the ISI.