Ex-Bangla intel chief confirms ISI link to 2004 ULFA arms haul

Anisur Rahman

Dhaka, June 15 (PTI) A long-suspected nexus between
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and insurgency
groups active in India's northeast have come to light with
detained former Bangladesh intelligence chief confirming
Islamabad's spy agency's link to the sensational supply of
arms to United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in 2004.

The former director of Bangladesh's intelligence agency
and a key suspect in the country's biggest ever arms haul case
has confirmed that ISI was involved in the aborted smuggling
of weapons believed to be destined to the ULFA hideouts in
northeast India, a media report said Monday.

Retired Wing Commander Shahabuddin, an ex-director of
the National Security Intelligence (NSI) told investigators
that detained suspects of the haul had several talks with ISI
officials working with Pakistan's High Commission in Dhaka,
Pratham Olo said quoting officials familiar to the probe.

Shahabuddin was remanded last week for the second time
to the custody of security agencies, who said they desired
further clarifications on the foreign link.

"There is nothing new in his statement as he was
interrogated again in our custody, but he clarified some
sensitive issues which were unclear until now," an unnamed
official said.

Another ex-chief of NSI, retired Brigadier General Abdur
Rahim, who is also in the custody of security agencies had
earlier also revealed the ISI link to the case.

The arrested NSI officials had allegedly played a key
role alongside some police officials in the planned
transportation of 10 truckloads of weapons from Bangladesh's
southeastern port city of Chittagong to Assam but law
enforcement agencies seized the arms in 2004 on their arrival.

Rahim and another detained official had told
interrogators and that Dubai-based ARY business group and
Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence were involved in the
case.

The past military-backed government of chief adviser
Fakhruddin Ahmed ordered a reinvestigation last year amid
allegations that there was a deliberate attempt on the part of
the then Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led government to
suppress facts in the case.

Rahim and his successor in NSI, retired major general
Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury and three other officials of the
intelligence agency were arrested and quizzed in custody as
part of the investigation into the case. PTI