Maulvi Bazar in B'desh a hub of terror camps

Source from- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Maulvi_Bazar_in_Bdesh_a_hub_of_terror_camps/articleshow/2960603.cms

NEW DELHI: Maulvi Bazar district in Bangladesh has emerged as the biggest training hub for terrorists and northeast insurgents within India's eastern neighbour.

Though other Bangladeshi districts too have training camps, Maulvi Bazar figures prominently in the revised list of 117 camps which Border Security Force (BSF) provided to Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) during a border coordination conference of the two countries here last week.

Incidentally, Maulvi Bazar - which is flanked by Assam and Tripura from two sides - comprises nearly one-fourth of the total camps located in Bangladesh.

Habibganj, Khagrachari, Rangamati, Chittagong and Sylhet are other districts where Indian intelligence agencies have pin-pointed locations of training camps - some of which are being run with the help of Pakistan's ISI to train the cadre of Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI).

Referring to the latest list of training camps which has come down from 141 to 117 in the past two years, a senior home ministry official said that though most of the camps were meant to provide training to northeast insurgents - belonging to United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and People's Liberation Army (PLA) - some of them in Maulvi Bazar and Habibganj had been identified as main hideouts of HuJI cadres.

"India has prepared the list on the basis of its own intelligence as well as after taking into account the details provided by a number of terrorists arrested along the border and elsewhere in India," the official said.

Asked what purpose the list would serve when Bangladesh denies the existence of such camps, the official said the fact that the list of such camps had come down was an indication of its importance, particularly when the neighbouring country had to show its clean record before the world community in the "global war against terrorism".

(vishwa.mohan@timesgroup.com)