New Delhi, August 19
Manipur in the North-East is emerging as the main hub of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) activities and a large number of madarsas are coming up in the border areas of the state in a bid to enroll youth to take up arms and get involved in subversive activities against India.
Disturbing intelligence reports emanating from the North-Eastern states forwarded to the Centre talk of ISI spreading its tentacles fast in Manipur in a bid to revive militancy in the region. The Muslim clerics pushed in by the ISI are exhorting the minority community population in the state to get recruited with the Pakistani agency for getting arms training across the border.
There is concern here in New Delhi specially regarding the Tamu Morah area of Manipur being visited frequently by ISI agents. Some of them have even settled down there to bring around the local minority population to get recruited with the ISI.
The Morah Mosque, run by a particular cleric, has been seen to be the frequent destination of a large number of groups being motivated by the ISI agents. The groups have actually been escorted in and out of the region by “Maulvi” Abdul Rashid himself.
According to reports, the Centre has sought more details from the intelligence agencies in this regard and asked the security forces to step up vigil in the region as it was adding a new dimension to the threat perception against India.
The Centre is viewing these attempts as an effort by the ISI to revive militancy in the North-Eastern regions by providing the militant groups with arms and ammunition. There are also reports of increased smuggling activities across the Indo-Myanmar border.
One of the outfits being actively wooed by the ISI is the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), a Meitei secessionist outfit. It is also trying to exploit the fundamentalist nature of the Peoples United Liberation Front (PULF) which seeks to further the cause of the minority community in the valley to drive a wedge among the other communities.
Intelligence reports say that the ISI influence can be seen in the promotion of a person identified as one Honda, who is also the self-styled Major, as the intelligence head of the PLA. Honda has made frequent trips to Bangladesh where he developed close contacts with the ISI.
The large sum of money being offered by the ISI to the cadres of the two organisations has also apparently turned their leaders like Nand Kishore and Major James the Pakistan way.
Reports suggest that there is also apparently a fear among PLA leadership of losing the money being offered by the ISI. The PLA fears that without the regular influx of weapons and money, the organisation could find itself in a similar state as in 1979, when it was marginalised due to a large number of cadres surrendering and joining the mainstream of the nation.
There is worry here as the cadres of the two organisations are also being used for espionage by the ISI.
