Bangladesh ran the risk of being a patroniser of secessionist movement in northeastern India after 10 truck-loads of weapons bound for fighters in Assam were unearthed in 2004, said security analyst Major Gen (Retd) Abdur Rashid yesterday.
The verdict on 10 trucks of arms haul case yesterday proved that several high officials of the government were aware about the issue which clearly indicates the then government’s support to the smuggling, he said.
The incident stoked the existing hostile relation between India and Pakistan.
On April 02, 2004, the police captured 10 trucks full of modern sophisticated arms and ammunition in Karnaphuli River near Chittagong port which was supposed to be delivered to the United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa), an insurgent group in neighbouring India.
Abdur Rashid thinks that such arms smuggling by using the country’s land is a clear violation of the its foreign policy.
“Absolute secrecy was maintained by the then government about the arms smuggling,” he added.
The retired army official said the punishment to the persons involved in the weapons smuggling was a must as it will give a good lesson to the authorities concerned to refrain themselves from such secret foreign policy.
Veteran journalist and researcher at the Brac Afsan Chowdhury said the country had engaged itself in the rivalry between Pakistan and India by giving space to use its land for delivering arms to Ulfa.
The politics in South Asia is gradually heading towards violence centring the hostile relation between India and Pakistan, Afsan said.
“The small countries like Bangladesh and Nepal have already got involved in their fights to establish supremacy in the region. These countries should come out of the vicious cycle of India-Pakistan rivalry.”
A Chittagong special court has sentenced 14, including two ministers – Motiur Rahman Nizami and Lutfozzaman Babar – of the then BNP-led four-party alliance government to death in arms smuggling case of the 10 truck arms haul yesterday afternoon.
Nizami was the industries minister while Babar was the state minister for home of the then BNP-led alliance government. The same court awarded life term imprisonment to 12 others in the arms case.
Chittagong Metropolitan Sessions Judge and Special Tribunal 1 judge SM Mojibur Rahman delivered the verdict in presence of 11 accused, including Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami and BNP leader Lutfozzaman Babar.
