The Hindu : National : Buddhadeb alleges ISI activities on eastern border

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 24, 2004

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National

Buddhadeb alleges ISI activities on eastern border

By Our Special Correspondent

KOLKATA, DEC. 23. The West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, today charged that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was operating from a neighbouring country and was encouraging extremist activity in the eastern part of India.

Mr. Bhattacharjee told the Assembly that unless there was a check on such trans-border movement of operatives, the region could turn into a hotbed for terrorists. The threat had been discussed with the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Defence Minister on earlier occasions. A certain fundamentalist and religious outfit was also attempting to foment disturbances in the State, he said.

Though the Chief Minister refrained from identifying any country from which the ISI operatives were trying to enter India, he said the State Government had been drawing the Centre's attention to reports of the presence of ISI bases and those of other militant outfits in Bangladesh. Mr. Bhattacharjee also requested the Union Home Ministry for deployment of the Indo-Tibet Border Police along West Bengal's border with Nepal in the wake of the expanding activities of rebel Maoists in that country.

Mr. Bhattacharjee expressed concern over reports of militants of the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) in north Bengal finding shelter in Nepal. Any mobilisation of such activists in that country would pose a problem to West Bengal's security, he said.

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