01-10-2006, 07:35 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>India virtually allows terrorists in from B'desh' </b>
Reuters
Mumbai, January 9: Lax vigilance by Indian immigration officials is allowing Islamist militants to smuggle in weapons and explosives from Bangladesh, a top official with India's border force said on Monday.
New Delhi says Kashmiri militant groups and separatists from the country's northeast use Bangladeshi territory to train their cadres and carry out hit-and-run attacks against India. Dhaka denies the charge.
Indian intelligence officials say Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant groups began using Bangladesh as a conduit for moving weapons after finding it difficult to cross into India through heavily guarded northern borders.
"The border guards have no power to check men and material coming in (to India) through customs and immigration," a top Border Security Force (BSF) official told Reuters.
<b>"Anything -- weapons, explosives and terrorists -- comes in," he said on condition of anonymity. "We can do nothing because they (customs and immigration) tell us we can't check the goods."
The BSF is the main agency protecting India's borders. India and Bangladesh share a 4,000-km (2,500-mile) frontier, guarded by about 45,000 BSF troops</b>.
Indian security agencies say radical Islamist groups in Muslim-majority Bangladesh are working hand in glove with Kashmiri militants, aiding terror attacks such as the December strike on an elite science university in southern India that killed a professor and wounded four others.
"We watch all of the vast border, but there are goods trains coming in from Bangladesh and thousands of people walk across ... with headloads that aren't checked," the official said.
"There are loopholes that terrorists take advantage of."
<b>HUGE BORDER </b>
<b>For instance, he said, hundreds of villagers in India's eastern state of West Bengal made a living by cutting away at the undercarriages of goods trains to make compartments for contraband. Many others ran people-smuggling rackets</b>.
"What goes and comes through on these trains is anybody's guess. No one investigates the people who travel on rooftops of the trains," the BSF official said. Large quantities of arms could be crossing undetected, he added.
Indian customs officials posted along the Bangladesh border had no comment on the charges.
New Delhi is trying to crack down on Bangladeshis it says are living and working illegally in India, believing a stream of economic migrants provides cover for Islamic militants. Dhaka denies both charges.
More than two years ago, New Delhi estimated that there were 20 million Bangladeshis living illegally in the country.
In an effort to check unauthorised movement across its eastern borders, New Delhi is building a barbed wire fence expected to be completed next year.
<b>Dhaka does not oppose the fencing, but objects when it is built too close to the "zero line" which divides the countries along a land and riverine border</b>.
India's normally friendly relations with Bangladesh have been marred by border skirmishes, the bloodiest of them the killing of 16 Indian and three Bangladeshi troops in 2001.
URL: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=61097
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Reuters
Mumbai, January 9: Lax vigilance by Indian immigration officials is allowing Islamist militants to smuggle in weapons and explosives from Bangladesh, a top official with India's border force said on Monday.
New Delhi says Kashmiri militant groups and separatists from the country's northeast use Bangladeshi territory to train their cadres and carry out hit-and-run attacks against India. Dhaka denies the charge.
Indian intelligence officials say Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant groups began using Bangladesh as a conduit for moving weapons after finding it difficult to cross into India through heavily guarded northern borders.
"The border guards have no power to check men and material coming in (to India) through customs and immigration," a top Border Security Force (BSF) official told Reuters.
<b>"Anything -- weapons, explosives and terrorists -- comes in," he said on condition of anonymity. "We can do nothing because they (customs and immigration) tell us we can't check the goods."
The BSF is the main agency protecting India's borders. India and Bangladesh share a 4,000-km (2,500-mile) frontier, guarded by about 45,000 BSF troops</b>.
Indian security agencies say radical Islamist groups in Muslim-majority Bangladesh are working hand in glove with Kashmiri militants, aiding terror attacks such as the December strike on an elite science university in southern India that killed a professor and wounded four others.
"We watch all of the vast border, but there are goods trains coming in from Bangladesh and thousands of people walk across ... with headloads that aren't checked," the official said.
"There are loopholes that terrorists take advantage of."
<b>HUGE BORDER </b>
<b>For instance, he said, hundreds of villagers in India's eastern state of West Bengal made a living by cutting away at the undercarriages of goods trains to make compartments for contraband. Many others ran people-smuggling rackets</b>.
"What goes and comes through on these trains is anybody's guess. No one investigates the people who travel on rooftops of the trains," the BSF official said. Large quantities of arms could be crossing undetected, he added.
Indian customs officials posted along the Bangladesh border had no comment on the charges.
New Delhi is trying to crack down on Bangladeshis it says are living and working illegally in India, believing a stream of economic migrants provides cover for Islamic militants. Dhaka denies both charges.
More than two years ago, New Delhi estimated that there were 20 million Bangladeshis living illegally in the country.
In an effort to check unauthorised movement across its eastern borders, New Delhi is building a barbed wire fence expected to be completed next year.
<b>Dhaka does not oppose the fencing, but objects when it is built too close to the "zero line" which divides the countries along a land and riverine border</b>.
India's normally friendly relations with Bangladesh have been marred by border skirmishes, the bloodiest of them the killing of 16 Indian and three Bangladeshi troops in 2001.
URL: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=61097
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