SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 12, No. 9, September 2 , 2013

INDIA	PAKISTAN

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Exposing the Fountainhead of Terrorism
Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

Indian security agencies arrested three top terrorists – Yasin Bhatkal aka Mohammad Ahmed Siddibappa Zarrar aka Imran aka Asif aka Shahrukh; Asadullah Akhtar aka Haddi; and Abdul Karim Tunda – from the Indian State of Bihar along the Indo-Nepal Border in the month of August, 2013. These arrests reconfirmed the fact that the Indo-Nepal Border has long provided safe passage to terror groups operating on Indian soil under the direct patronage of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Revelations made by the arrestees have further exposed links between the ISI and various Islamist terrorist groups.

In the night of August 28, 2013, Indian security agencies arrested Yasin Bhatkal, thought to be Indian Mujahideen’s (IM) ‘operational chief’ on Indian soil, from Nahar Chowk at Raxaul in the East Champaran District of Bihar, along with an accomplice, identified as Asadullah Akhtar. Reports indicate that Bhatkal, who had been hiding at Pokhara, headquarters of Kaski District, in Nepal, in the guise of a Unani doctor, was arrested at Raxaul on the basis of specific inputs from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) that he was to visit Raxaul that day. The duo was remanded to 12 days in Police custody by a Delhi court on August 30, 2013.

While this appears to be the officially sanctioned sequence of events, there are some indications that Bhatkal may, in fact, have been handed over to Indian agencies by authorities in the United Arab Emirates, and was then brought to India through Nepal, essentially to cover up the UAE’s increasing cooperation with Indian authorities on issues of terrorism.

Yasin Bhatkal gained prominence in IM’s operations when IM’s top leaders – Riyaz Bhatkal, Iqbal Bhatkal and Amir Reza Khan, among others – fled to Pakistan in the aftermath of a crackdown on the group by Indian security agencies in 2008-09, following the September 13, 2008, Delhi blasts that killed 24 people. The killing of Atif Amin and Mohamed Sajid in the September 19, 2008, Batla House encounter was a major blow to the outfit and nearly decimated its ‘Azamgarh (Uttar Pradesh) module’. A critical motivator, logistics provider and explosives ‘expert’, Yasin then came to the centre stage, setting up the 'Darbhanga (Bihar) module' and launched attacks across India. Indeed, during his interrogation he has revealed that he recruited youth from Bihar's Mithilanchal region, including Darbhanga, Madhubani and Samastipur Districts, over the past few years. He also told his interrogators that “he was living in Nepal for the past six months and had readied around 100 hardcore associates who could do anything at his bidding”.

Yasin Bhatkal is suspected to have been involved in most of the attacks in the hinterland since the November 23, 2007, court blasts in Uttar Pradesh (near-simultaneous blasts targeting lawyers in court premises at Varanasi, Faizabad and Lucknow, killed 15 people and injured 80). He was caught on CCTV actually planting the bomb at the German Bakery in Pune (Maharashtra) on February 13, 2010, killing 17 people and injuring 60. CCTV cameras again captured his presence at the blast site in Dilshukhnagar (Hyderabad), where at least 17 people were killed and 117 were injured in twin blasts, on February 21, 2013. Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) Chief Rakesh Maria asserts, “He was the commander-in-chief in India of IM’s operations. His name first cropped up on our radar while we were tracking the origin of three terror emails sent before and after the July 26, 2008, Gujarat [Ahmadabad] bomb blasts."

On August 16, 2013, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorist Abdul Karim Tunda was arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police from an undisclosed location on the Indo-Nepal border and produced at a Delhi court on August 17, 2013. In the dossier handed over to Pakistan after the November 26, 2008, Mumbai (26/11) terror attacks, Tunda was ranked 15^th among India’s most wanted terrorists in Pakistani safe havens. Tunda is accused of masterminding over 40 bomb blasts in New Delhi, Panipat and Sonepat (in Haryana), Ludhiana (in Punjab), and Kanpur and Varanasi (in Uttar Pradesh), between December 1996 and January 1998. These incidents left at least 21 persons dead and over 400 injured.

Earlier, on August 2, 2013, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had arrested Abdul Sathar aka Manzoor after he was deported from UAE. He was arrested in a case pertaining to the organisation of a training camp for the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) conducted at Wagamon in the Kottayam District of Kerala in 2007. According to the NIA, SIMI cadres conducted a three-day training camp at Wagamon which involved a course in physical and arms training, including firing practice, rope climbing, rock climbing, motorcycle racing and manufacture of petrol bombs, among others. The camp also included motivation and discussions on jihad in India and incited the participants to wage war against the state.

A significant aspect of several recent arrests is the degree to which foreign intelligence and enforcement agencies – including many that tended to look the other way at Pakistani and Islamist terrorist mobilisation and mischief in the past – have increasingly cooperated with India. Some significant actions that involved support from foreign agencies include the arrest of IM operative Fasih Mohammad (deported from Saudi Arabia and subsequently arrested at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on October 22, 2012); Fasih Mohammad is a suspect in the April 17, 2010, Chinnaswamy Stadium (Bangalore, Karnataka), blast case, and the September 19, 2010, Jama Masjid (Delhi) shooting case; the arrest of LeT operative Abu Hamza alias Sayeed Zabi ud Deen alias Zabi Ansari alias Riyasat Ali alias Abu Jundal, the 26/11 attacks handler, arrested on June 21, 2012, after being extradited from Saudi Arabia; LeT terrorist A. Rayees, deported from Saudi Arabia and arrested on October 6, 2012, named as the third accused in the case of the seizure of explosives at Malayalamkunnu under Chakkarakkal in the Kannur District of Kerala, in 2009.

Indeed, Indian counter-terrorism successes – largely unnoticed in the public discourse – have, in fact, been quite frequent over the past years. Partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal indicate that at least 876 persons involved in Islamist extremism, including LeT and SIMI/IM cadres, ISI agents and Bangladeshi, Nepali and Pakistani nationals, have been arrested since the 26/11 attacks, across the country. 88 such persons have, thus far, been arrested in 2013 alone.

There have, of course, been some failures, and these are naturally given far wider notice that the silent successes. At least some of these failures have occurred despite fairly specific intelligence provided by Central intelligence agencies, and are the result of a failure of the Police to respond adequately – either as a consequence of a deficit in capacities, of possible neglect, or a combination of these. IM operatives arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell in September-October 2012 had revealed during interrogations in October 2012 that Dilsukhnagar in Hyderabad and Buddhist Temples in Bodh Gaya had been reconnoitred by them on instructions from IM founder Riyaz Bhatkal. Subsequent and repeated warnings on these, based on recurrent intelligence flows, had been issued by the IB. Yet, the culpable neglect of agencies involved in Policing resulted in successful terrorist attacks at these sites.

Most of the arrestees have confirmed their links with the ISI during interrogations. While Jundal’s revelations about the ISI have already been documented, Tunda has, so far, revealed,

He came in contact with the ISI after meeting former ISI chief Hamid Gul in 1995. He was in constant touch with him (Gul) thereafter. He (Tunda) reports to Major Bashir of ISI… The ISI manages all terrorist organizations in Pakistan and LeT is the most powerful. ISI was the official arm which has got several other tanzeems (organizations) like LeT, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), under its umbrella to carry out various tasks. The handlers call these tanzeems as social organizations (sic)… Two majors of ISI were monitoring the 26/11 Mumbai attacks but he  (Tunda) couldn't meet them since he was not part of the operation… Two (other) ISI majors, identified as Tayeeb and Alta, (were) deputed by ISI to push fake currencies into India… Iqbal Kana, who is the biggest dealer of FICN (Fake Indian Currency Notes), gets the notes through an ISI Brigadier and then it (sic) is pushed into India via Bangladesh and Nepal through his network… Dawood (Ibrahim) stays in a safe house in Karachi and is guarded by ISI.

Similarly, Yasin Bhatkal has reportedly told his interrogators,

He had trained with ISI for two months in 2006. A Lieutenant Colonel level officer of the ISI was his handler. He gave him instructions and take updates on works done. The officer also sent money to him through hawala channels and encouraged him to recruit more Indian youth in Indian Mujahideen through radicalisation. He is not the head of IM in India and only follows instructions from both his Pakistani handler as well as his boss [the identity of the boss not mentioned].

These revelations, among others by the large number of persons arrested in connection with Islamist extremist terrorism in India over the past years, confirm that the various terrorist formations operating in this country are mere pawns of the ISI, which remains the source and fountainhead of terrorism in South Asia. While the most urgent imperative for India, today, is to develop the capacity to neutralize the terrorist networks that have been established on its soil, and to secure the cooperation of various other countries that are used for mobilisation and transit by these networks, the challenge of containing and countering the ISI’s unrelenting campaign of terrorism remains virtually unaddressed within the policy establishment in Delhi and in the various States afflicted by the threat of Islamist terrorism.

INDIA

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Odisha: Red March and the Deception of Development
Mrinal Kanta Das
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

At least four Border Security Force (BSF) personnel were killed and two were injured in a landmine blast triggered by Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres on the Ghat Road near Ralegada on National Highway 26 in the Koraput District of Odisha on August 27, 2013.

On August 22, an encounter occurred between an estimated 20 CPI-Maoist cadres and Security Force (SF) personnel in the Gandhamardan Forest area of Paikamal in Bargarh District. However, no casualty was reported.

A day earlier, motorboat services to 151 villages in and around the Balimela Reservoir in Malkangiri District were indefinitely suspended following CPI-Maoist threats. The move completely cut off around 25,000 people living in the area. The service was resumed on August 31, 2013, after hectic efforts by the District administration. 

On July 17, 2013, CPI-Maoist cadres killed a contractor in Koraput District, claiming he was a Police informer. Earlier, on July 8, Maoist cadres killed two civilians in Malkangiri District, again on the grounds that they were Police informers.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), Odisha has recorded 538 fatalities, including 226 civilians, 172 SF personnel and 140 Maoists, since the formation of the CPI-Maoist on October 14, 2004. In 2013, the State has recorded 23 fatalities, including 12 civilians, five SFs and six Maoists (all data till September 1, 2013).

64.31 per cent of the fatalities since October 2004 have taken place in Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Rayagada, Balangir, Kalahandi and Nuapada Districts. Malkangiri recorded the highest number of fatalities (155), followed by Koraput (122), Rayagada (36), Nuapada (19), Nabarangpur (8), Balangir (5), Kalahandi (1). In 2013, Malkangiri has already registered 11 fatalities, followed by Koraput (6), Rayagada (3), Nuapada (1) and Bolangir (1). Gajpati District, which falls outside this cluster, recorded one fatality.

It is significant that these seven Districts, plus an eighth, Sonepur, have been covered under the much-hyped Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput (KBK) scheme, which was initiated on August 18, 1995, with an aim to alleviate poverty, bridge disparities and develop the physical and social infrastructure of the region. Indeed, during the extended course of this scheme, Kalahandi, Balangir and Koraput were sub-divided further, purportedly to secure good governance and better administration. Malkangiri, Nabarangpur and Rayagada were carved out of Koraput District on October 2, 1992, while Sonepur became a District on April 1, 1993; and Nuapada was carved out of Kalahandi District on March 27, 1993.

However, despite the Central Government spending INR 19.63 billion to bring this cluster of eight Districts out of decades of backwardness, poverty, illiteracy and corruption, the lack of basic minima of health, educational and social services and utter maladministration continue to plague the region. The percentage of persons below the poverty line in the eight Districts of the KBK region stood at 66.28 in 2009-10; the figure for the non-KBK Districts of Odisha is 31.41. A report submitted by the State Government to the National Human Rights Commission in 2011 accepted that about 1,600 persons had died in the region on account of various easily curable diseases such as diarrhoea, jaundice, tuberculosis and malaria during the preceding couple of years. The report further noted that, over the preceding five years, there had been a widespread outbreak of diarrhoea in the region on two occasions, and that the region still lacked basic health services to deal with elementary diseases.

Unsurprisingly, the region has emerged as one of the most fertile operational areas for the CPI-Maoist. On August 17, 2013, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh observed that the CPI-Maoist was running a “parallel administration” in Maoist-affected areas of Odisha, “as poverty alleviation programmes are not reaching out to designated beneficiaries.”

Indeed, according to an April 15, 2013, media report, in a letter written to 13 State Governments, and based on an intelligence assessment on the Maoists’ effort at expansion, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) acknowledged that the Maoists had formed the Chhattisgarh-Odisha Border State Committee with three divisions to operate in Mahasamund, Gariaband and Dhamtari Districts on the Chhattisgarh side of the interstate border, and in Balangir, Bargarh and Nuapada Districts on the Odisha side of the border. "This has helped create a corridor between the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee area on the one hand, and Bihar-Jharkhand-North Chhattisgarh Special Area Committee area on the other," the letter added. It observed, further, that the area needed "to be closely monitored in view of the party's [CPI-Maoist] plans to convert the Sunabeda Forest area in Nuapada District into a base area." In an earlier assessment on Maoist violence in the Nuapada, Balangir and Bargarh Districts of western Odisha, SAIR had also reached similar conclusions.

Underlining the strategic importance of Sunabeda Sanctuary, which falls under Nuapada District of Odisha, Jairam Ramesh, after returning from Nuapada on January 13, 2013, wrote to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, stating, "In Nuapada District, it is clear that the incidents of Maoist violence have gone up sharply in the last few years. The Sunabeda Forest area has become the hub of Maoist activity and the attacks on the neighbouring Districts like Kalahandi and Balangir are being executed from Sunabeda area." Ramesh was proposing a ‘special development plan’ in the Sunabeda area on the lines of the Saranda Development Plan in Jharkhand. Though the Union Minister did not elaborate on rising Maoist activities in Nuapada, SATP data shows that the District has recorded 19 violent incidents, including 10 incidents of killing resulting in 19 deaths (10 civilians and nine SF personnel) since 2009. Significantly, Nuapada registered its first Maoist-related fatality on November 18, 2009, when a former ward member of the Sunabeda Panchayat (village level local self Government institution), Chandar Singh Barge (60), was shot dead by CPI-Maoist cadres inside the Sunabeda Wildlife Sanctuary area. The worst Maoist-related incident in the District occurred on May 23, 2011, when the Maoists triggered a landmine blast in the Sunabeda Forest, killing nine Policemen, including the Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) of Gariabandh District (Chhattisgarh). The most recent incident of killing in the District occurred on February 8, 2013, when a Sikhya Sahayak (stipendiary primary school teacher) was killed by the Maoists at Pathpani village. Soon after the incident 250 villagers left their homes, fearing further violence, as the Maoists had asked the villagers to oppose the Civic Action Programme of the Police and stop ‘working as Police informers’. The villagers later met the Nuapada District Collector and Superintendent of Police on March 6, 2013, and petitioned the officials to treat them as displaced persons. They had also appealed to Chief Minister Patnaik to relocate them to some other villages. Media reports indicate that these villagers are yet to return to their own villages.

Earlier, the threat of Maoist violence stopped Union Minister Jairam Ramesh, who visited Nuapada on February 16, 2013, from visiting the Sunabeda Sanctuary on advice of the District Police. According to reports, the area's Member of Parliament (MP) Bhakta Charan Das and Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Rajendra Dholakia have also been unable to visit the area for the past three years.

Worried over the rise of Maoist violence in the region, Chief Minister Patnaik has demanded deployment of two additional Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) battalions and a MI-17 military helicopter to contain fresh build-up by the Maoists in Nuapada, Balangir and Bargarh Districts. According to reports, 17 battalions of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) are currently deployed in Odisha. He contended that heavy deployment of SFs across the border in Chhattisgarh was pushing the Maoists into Odisha. Indeed, the region shares its borders with seven Districts of Chhattisgarh (Raigarh, Mahasamund, Gariaband, Dhamtari, Kondagaon, Bastar and Sukma), out of which three Districts (Kondagaon, Bastar and Sukma) are among the 26 worst Maoist-affected Districts of the country. The region also shares its borders with Khammam, East Godavari, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam Districts of Andhra Pradesh, among which Khammam and Visakhapatnam, still find place in the category of the 26 worst Maoist-affected Districts.      

Meanwhile, the State Government, after failing to deliver on the developmental front despite expending vast amounts through various schemes, including the KBK scheme, has now decided to establish the ‘Sunabeda Area Development Agency (SADA)’ by integrating various welfare schemes currently being implemented under various departments. The project has an estimated cost of INR 2.4 billion and is to be implemented over five years.

With continuing violence and widespread insecurity among the people, it is not clear how these projects are to be implemented in the target region. According to National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) data, Odisha has a State Police-population ratio of 110 to 100,000. Ratios in the Maoist afflicted areas are worse. In Nuapada, for instance, there are just 10.38 Policemen per 100 square kilometres and 66 policemen per 100,000 population.

The continuing failure to address the issue of security and the persistent Maoist insurgency make a mockery of any pretence of establish ‘good governance’ or bring ‘development’ to the people in afflicted areas. Indeed, the very large sums of money that have already been allocated and spent purportedly for the ‘development’ of these areas, and the absence of any quantifiable impact, suggest that the enthusiasm for special packages in areas of instability and conflict have motives other than the welfare of the people.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

INDIA

Assam

Jammu and Kashmir

Left-wing Extremism

Chhattisgarh

Odisha

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

Gilgit-Baltistan

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)