The Order of Battle of the ISI
Director General
Deputy Director Generals
Counter Intelligence Public Affairs & Services External Political
Joint Intelligence Director
Finance Technical
North East India
One aspect, however, which must be kept in mind, is the tendency among a section of the Indian media and intelligentsia to over-stress the ISI factor. And, while it is not in doubt that the Pakistani intelligence service has infiltrated a number of areas in India, and are consequently responsible for the prairie fires that are raging, it has become somewhat of a habit to blame the ISI for everything that ails India. ISI-criers in India must contend with the fact that discretion is the better part of both valor and wisdom. Thus, attribution of responsibility to the ISI in every case is unsound. In the words of a retired Pakistani Admiral whom this author met on 17 June 2003 at the Cooperative Monitoring Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico during the course of a lecture this author was delivering, I had no idea the ISI is so efficient.
The ISI and ULFA
On 6 April 2000, the then Chief Minister of Assam, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, delivered the first comprehensive report in the Assam State Assembly after almost a yearlong engagement with the ISI-sponsored cell inside Assam. The placing of the report, of course, had to await the breaking up of the Pakistani intelligence agencies network in the state. On 7 August 1999, the Assam Police achieved a major breakthrough and arrested four important leaders of the network in Guwahati. The police also arrested twenty-seven other persons belonging to different Islamic militant groups. The important people who were arrested were: 1) Md Fasih Ullah Hussaini alias Hamid Mehmood alias Khalid Mehmood of Hyderabad (Sind), Pakistan; 2) Md Javed Waqar alias Md Musaffa alias Md Mehraj alias Abdul Rahman; 3) Maulana Hafiz Md Akram Mallik alias Musaffa Hussain alias Atabullah alias Bhaijan alias Abdul Awal of Mukam Shahwali village of Jammu and Kashmir; and 4) Kari Salim Ahmad alias Abdul Aziz alias Sadat of Mehilki village of Muzafarnagar of Uttar Pradesh.
The Chief Minister of Assams report to the State Assemblywhile seeking to provide comprehensiveness to the nature and degree of the ISI threatwas primarily a synopsis of the events that had occurred in the period following the 7 August 1999 arrests of the thirty-one people. In the period following the 7 August 1999 arrests, according to the report the state police had unearthed the modus operandi of the foreign agency. According to the sixteen-page report (which included mug-shots and profiles of the main accused) the activities of the ISI are mainly in the following areas:
· Promoting indiscriminate violence in the State by providing active support to the local militant outfits.
· Creating new militant outfits along ethnic and communal lines by instigating ethnic and religious groups.
· Supplying explosives and sophisticated arms to various terrorist groups.
· Causing sabotage of oil pipelines and other installations, communication lines, railways, and roads.
· Promoting fundamentalism and militancy among local Muslim youths by misleading them in the name of jihad.
· Promoting communal tension between Hindu and Muslim citizens by way of false and highly inflammatory propaganda.
Intelligence reports made available to this author have also indicated that the ISI had sought to smuggle in sixty kilograms of Research Developed Explosives, or RDX, into Assam. This was attempted in the month of August 1999 when the ISI decided to unleash Operation Tehsad in North East India. The motivation was to destroy the areas oil industry and surface transport. The ULFA was to be supplied the RDX. The ISI gave the ULFA the first installment of the explosives by which they could begin their operationsfour explosions took place in three days on rail tracks and trains.
The second consignment was left in the care of two Harkat-ul-Mujahideen cadres at the Sat Gombuz mosque in Bangladeshs Rajshahi district. The Assam police, however, managed to eliminate Babul Ingti, an ULFA cadre, in an encounter and was able, thereafter, to locate the whereabouts of the rest of the RDX. An Assam police team infiltrated into Rajshahi through West Bengal (with the help of the West Bengal Police) and having got the password from Waqar (which was Kandahar), the team managed to get thirty-two kgs of explosives from the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and returned to Bengal through the Birsa corridor in Malda. Operation Tehsad ended in failure and oil installations could not be hit. However, on the orders of the ULFA Chief of Staff, Paresh Barua, the Volcano unit of the ULFA later destroyed the Thekeraguri oil depot near Jagiroad in Assam.
Reports have also indicated that the Assam police have in its possession evidence to show that the top ULFA leadership is in close touch with certain officials of the Pakistani High Commission in Dhaka. The ULFA leaders have also been traveling to Pakistan regularly for training, indoctrination, and consultation. According to the Chief Ministers report, confessional statements of many ULFA leaders including the organizations Vice Chairman, Pradip Gogoi, have stated that the Pakistani officials in their High Commission in Dhaka arrange passports for the ULFA in various Muslim names. The Chief of Staff of the ULFA, Paresh Barua, for instance, travels to Pakistan under the name Kamarudin Zaman Khan, an alias he has been provided with by the ISI.
The ULFA-ISI nexus had, in fact, begun way back in the early 1990s. A list (culled by the Special Branch of the Assam Police) of some of the early events and meetings that had taken place between the two organizations is provided below.
· In November 1990, the ULFA decides to send Munin Nabis and Partha Pratim Bora alias Javed to Bangladesh to contact the ISI at Dhaka for arranging supply of arms and ammunition. They were instructed to set up a base camp in Bangladesh.
· Munin Nabis sets up a base camp in Dhaka in 1990 with the help of a Col. (Retd.) Faruque of the Bangladesh Freedom Party and Gani Shapan of the Jatiyo Party. Nabis rents a house at Mogbazar in Dhaka.
· Munin Nabis assumes the name Iqbal and contacts Samsul Siddique, the Second Secretary in the Pakistan Embassy at Dhaka. Contacts with the ISI are established through Siddique.
· Munin Nabis visits Pakistan to negotiate with a terrorist group headed by a Mustafa Ali Jubardo for the impartment of training to ULFA cadres on payment.
· The Vice Chairman of the ULFA, Pradip Gogoi, visits Dhaka in January 1991 and contacts an ISI officer called Mr. Haque. Gogoi signs an agreement for the impartment of training to ULFA cadres. He also meets there another ISI officer, a Mr. Jalal.
· After the agreement with the ISI, Munin Nabis calls a group of ULFA members for training in Pakistan in April 1991. Pradip Gogoi accompanies a six-member group to Islamabad for training with the ISI.
· Hari Mohan Roy alias Rustar Choudhury of the ULFA, along with ten other ULFA cadres, undergo training in camps organized by the ISI in Pakistan in 1993. Hari Mohan Roy obtains a passport under the name of Jamul Akhtar, son of Akhtar Hussain of Bangladesh.
· According to a recorded statement of the renegade ULFA leader, Lohit Deury, the ULFAs Foreign Secretary, Sasadhar Choudhury, had passed on information of the Indian army formation location in Assam to the ISI in Kathmandu.
The ISI had also organized training for the ULFA cadres in association with the Directorate General of Field Intelligence of Bangladesh at a camp located thirty-five kilometers west of the Karnaphulli Hydro-electric project in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in 1993. A retired Bangladesh army officer, Brig. Joimullah Khan Choudhury, supervised the training. The ISI had reportedly also imparted specialized training to forty-eight ULFA cadres in Azad Kashmir along with the Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam. Furthermore, there is also evidence to suggest that the ISI is activating the border areas in Nepal for relocation of some of the militant camps, especially after the presence in Bhutan has become a problem. The ULFA along with the NDFB have reportedly already set up camps in Jhapa, Tapegung, and Panchthar in eastern Nepal.
The ULFAs links with the Sipahi-e-Sahiba was highlighted in a correspondence between a one-time head of the Special Branch of the Assam Police and the Joint Director (North East) of the Intelligence Bureau, India. The letter stated:
Intelligence input received recently indicates that ULFA has got links with Sipahi-e-Sahiba of Kabul Afghanistan, which is also funding the outfit for its training programme in the training camp in Halowaghat in Mymensingh district of Bangladesh as well as for the purchase of arms. A letter written by Commander-in-Chief of the Sipahi-e-Sahiba of Kabul Afghanistan to Commander-in-Chief, Terik-e-Jihad, Chokoria, Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh on 08-08-2000 indicates that a sum of Rs.80 lakh has been sent to the bank account no. 804856 of Islamia Bank, Chittagong to meet the expenditure of ULFA training camp located at Halowaghat and also to buy heavy arms for the outfit.
Another documentary evidence is a letter written by Jamaat-e-Islami chief of Bangladesh addressed to the General Secretary, MULTA which indicates that Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan has sent a sum of Rupees 8 Lakh through Jamaat-e-Islami of Bangladesh for assistance of MULTA in carrying out their struggle of establishing Muslim legal rights.
Another intelligence input received indicates that in order to run the training camp at Halowaghat, ULFA has recently opened two new bank accounts (i) Account No: 205341 in Islamia Bank, College Road Branch and (ii) Account No: 543708 in A.B. Bank, Medical Road Branch in Mymensingh District in Bangladesh. Reportedly ULFA is trying to establish a very profitable business of computer hardware and software in collaboration with Fema International, a Swedish computer company and they have made all preparations for opening up a software network sometime in the month of September 2000 in Saber about 30 Kms away from Dhaka
[70]
The Pakistani misadventure in Kargil brought out into the open the ULFA-ISI nexus. [71] According to the Indian army operating in Assam, the ULFA was involved in the passing of information of troop movements to and from Assam to the ISI. The ULFA was also allegedly pressured by the ISI to make anti-Indian statementsprimarily supporting the liberation of Kashmir.
It has also been reported that the genocide perpetrated by the ULFA during the closing months of 2000 when they began to systematically target Hindi-speaking Assamese was planned by the ISI. [72] Indeed, intelligence reports have suggested that members of Bangladesh based Jamaat-e-Islamis student wing, the Islamic Chatra Shibir, operated along with the ULFA to perpetrate the acts of terror.
The ULFA has, however, denied any links with the ISI. It stated in its fortnightly newsletter:
Dismissing the continuous accusations of New Delhi and its occupation forces, ULFA Chief of Staff, Mr. Paresh Barua said that the ULFA is not a creation of the ISI. In a press release issued on November 3, Mr. Barua said that ULFA was born on the basis of genuine historical injustice in the womb of Mother Assam, ULFA never danced, not in the present time or would dance in future to the tunes of the ISI or somebody else
The alleged link of the ULFA with ISI and other foreign agencies is only a heinous conspiracy of New Delhi, aimed at nullifying the legitimate liberation struggle of the people of Assam. [73]
One important aspect, however, which must be mentioned about the ULFA, is the refusal of most of the ULFAs 28th Battalion cadres to bow to the dictates of the ISI and destroy the oil installations situated in Upper Assam. The 28th Battalion [74] is situated in Upper Assam and most of the cadres of the battalion have grown up with the oil fields and the installations. As a result, when the ISI wanted the ULFA to attack the oil installations in Upper Assam, the 28th Battalion cadres disagreed. However, the non-compliance was short-lived and the ULFA fired a mortar shell onto a refinery in Upper Assams oil town of Digboi on 8 March 2003 and inflicted considerable damage. The ISI has clearly won the Upper Assam restraint round, and analysts are of the opinion that the ULFA is completely in the control of the Pakistani intelligence agency.
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