Bengal's Terror Machine

Among his many profound pieces of advice that “Deep Throat” gave Bob Woodward, one principle in the pursuit of crimes remains immortal:  “Follow the money”. It started as another scam or a Ponzi scheme but the pursuit of the Saradha scam in Bengal has opened up a much bigger threat to the country and one of its neighbours. The web of deceit, financial crimes and the linkage to terrorism is shocking to say the least. And all of this comes with involvement of the ruling party members in the state. There is no escape for Mamata Banerjee (MB) or her TMC from this. She will indeed have to answer for a lot.

On the evening of October 6, Monday, the man in the pic, Derek O’Brien (DOB) was asked to respond to the incident of an accidental blast at the Burdwan centre of TMC which killed two men who were assembling IEDs. Instead of answering the questions DOB stated barking at the BJP and Social Media as “hate-mongering” with their Hindu agenda against the TMC. This scumbag also happens to be an MP from Bengal. We have to wonder what agenda the TMC really has. In June-July there was a spate of attacks on Hindus and BJP leaders by TMC goondas, some murders too. There were a few rapes earlier which MB described as a “conspiracy” against her. 34 years of CPM and now this absolute horror of a political party sinking Bengal has still not seen an outrage in our media. Not surprising because they all belong in the “Sickular” basket. Let’s summarise the story first.

On August 24 a story surfaced about the Saradha scam money fanning terrorism in Bangladesh: “The CBI and ED learnt that funds collected from the public through Saradha’s chit fund schemes were centrally deposited at the group’s offices in Salt Lake. After being accounted for, hundreds of crores were transported to various centres close to the Indo-Bangladesh border. The cash was put in huge bags and taken by ambulances belonging to the Saradha group. The Indian currency was then secretly converted to Bangladeshi Taka and European currencies at a “Foreign Currency Convertor Centre” belonging to a man from Kolkata. Armed couriers of radical Islamic outfits would then smuggle the converted currency across the border under the cover of darkness”. The report mentions the operations being managed by a Rajya Sabha MP. He is TMC MP Ahmed Hassan Imran and his story is quite interesting:

“TMC links with Bangladeshi radical groups The Anand Bazar Patrika report “Before 2011, the Jamaat helped Trinamool with huge funds secretly transferred across the border. Imran played a key role in it. “Later when the Jamaat faced government’s ire during its opposition to war crimes trials, it received funds from Trinamool which had come to power in 2011 and many of whose leaders were ministers in the Manmohan Singh government,” the Ananda Bazar Patrika report said, quoting extensively from a detailed report it claims was given to India by Bangladesh intelligence. Who is Ahmed Hassan Imran? Ahmed Hassan Imran is a Rajya Sabha MP from West Bengal at present. In 1975-76 he founded West Bengal Muslim Students Association. In 1977, Imran co-founded the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh”.

It doesn’t stop there. This Ahmed Hassan Imran is suspected to be not an Indian but technically a citizen of Pakistan: “A Pakistani citizen is now a TMC member in the Rajya Sabha, courtesy West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee. Ahmed Hassan, aka Imran, is in fact a Pakistani citizen, since he entered India from East Pakistan in 1970-71, before the birth of Bangladesh”. Let’s move forward with the story:

“An explosion in Burdwan town of West Bengal on Thursday (October 2) killed two people and led to a cache of arms and explosives being discovered, causing the police to suspect a terror link. The blast occurred around noon at a house in a residential locality of Burdwan town, about 100 km from Kolkata, in the middle of the festive season of Durga Puja. More than 50 improvised explosive devices (IED), other explosives and wires were recovered from the flat. Shakil Ahmed (32) was killed on the spot while Swapan Mondal (22) succumbed to injuries at the… Hospital.   A third, Hasan Saheb, is stable and undergoing medical treatment while a fourth male resident is absconding… fire brigade personnel were prevented from entering the house by two women, who refused to open the door. Upon breaking open the door, the police found them burning some papers. The women -- Ahmed’s wife Rumi Bibi and Hasan’s wife Aklima Bibi – have been detained. Security agencies are now trying to find out if the IEDs were meant to be used in Bengal or sent somewhere else. Bomb disposal squads have also recovered a number of explosives and SIM cards on the banks of the Damodar river near the town. The six people – four men and two women – rented the house three months ago and told house owner Hasan Chowdhury that they were setting up a workshop for making Burkhas. Chowdhury didn’t check the identities of the tenants”

The house the potential terrorists used belonged to Nurul Hasan Chowdhury. You don’t need another guess to know that he too is a member of the TMC. He leads the Burdwan unit of the TMC and his house also operates as its make-shift office. Don’t be surprised – in this day and age Hasan Chowdhury, a political leader, lets out his house to people without knowing who they are or without any background check as he claimed. The bomb-making guests of TMC had targets of Kolkata airport and a dozen other targets (AajTak). That just about summarises the sequence of events for us

If the bomb-makers had succeeded in their plans there could have been a major carnage around Durga Puja in Bengal and who knows how many people may have been killed. And we discovered all this only because a couple of bombs they were assembling went off accidentally. MamataB’s Muslim-appeasement is not limited merely to her govt policies or vote-bank politics. She has now reduced Bengal police to levels of unthinkable stupidity after a major terror-threat. Dressing up as a Muslim or praying as a Muslim is one thing but letting or asking the police to cover up crimes, as is being reported, is a totally different thing and this is what happened:

Over 50 explosives and other accessories collected by the Bengal police from the Burdwan house were detonated and destroyed. Why? What kind of criminal police destroys evidence? In addition, the women involved in the operation burnt a lot of papers which still left some corners legible. Forensic sciences can even investigate and find clues even in fully burnt papers and items. What does the Bengal police do? I watched with horror the TimesNow reporter picking up pieces from the debris to show it to the camera while the public was casually walking around inspecting the debris as if it were a tourist spot. Is this how a state deals with terrorists or potential-terrorists? And to all that, MamataB still wants the state CID to deal with these incidents and refuses NIA investigation. Nothing can be more comic. The Centre cannot be dictated by such comic stubbornness if they plan to tackle terrorism seriously. Here’s Vicky Nanjappa who has been reporting on these events consistently:

 

India is strongly against cross-border terrorism and faces the same problem with Pakistan. Why would we tolerate a state where the govt acknowledges cross-border terrorism but refuses an NIA investigation? There seems to be abundant evidence that this Ahmed Hassan of TMC has been promoting extremism in Bangladesh and their govt has asked for serious action on this:

“Indian Muslims will live for India and die for India” said Modi in an interview to a tainted, foreign news peddler. The Muslims involved in this entire episode not only appear to have had a plan to kill people at large but even Muslims across the border. Bengal govts, the present and the previous CPM, seem to have a special sympathy for terrorists. The CPM is known to have political-murders as a party policy. “Eminent terrorist” Yasin Bhatkal was in custody in Bengal but jumped bail mysteriously from Kolkata. And this is the same dumb Bengal police that is investigating the Burdwan incident and related cross-border terrorism?

“There is no good and bad terrorism” said Narendra Modi at the UN. There is no reason why one should tolerate a state govt which has members who not only support terror activities in India but also have links to cross-border terrorism. It doesn’t take Einstein to figure out that this cannot have been going on for so long without the knowledge of many in power in Bengal. There are problems at the LOC which Modi-Sarkar is now tackling firmly. Modi believes in the federalism and greater autonomy of states. But terrorism and cross-border promotion of it cannot be merely the state’s issue. It is a national security issue. Narendra Modi must intervene and ensure a massive operation to weed out terrorists from Bengal is undertaken. There is also the promise of sending back illegal Bangladeshis. These issues must see signals of actions. If these were mere election rhetoric there will be a very large price to pay.