Intelligence warns of massive infiltration drive to alter West Bengal’s demography

Intelligence agencies are monitoring efforts by ISI-backed groups, including Jamaat-e-Islami, RSO, and ARSA, to send illegal immigrants from Bangladesh into West Bengal before elections, aiming at demographic changes, while also tracking potential terror threats from HuJI and JMB

New Delhi: The Intelligence agencies are keeping a close watch on the activities at Satkhira and Chuadanga in Bangladesh, as a fresh push is being made to send in illegal immigrants ahead of the West Bengal elections. Satkhira and Chuadanga in southwestern Bangladesh are bordered by India’s North 24 Paraganas district and Nadia district respectively.

The ISI has been nudging the Jamaat-e-Islami to make fresh attempts to send in a large number of illegal immigrants into West Bengal. Interestingly the push is not being made to send in terrorists along with these illegal immigrants.

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The ISI wants the immigration on such a large scale that it forces massive demographic changes in West Bengal, an Intelligence Bureau official said. What has worried the Indian agencies further is that in the recently held Bangladesh national elections, the Satkhira and Chuadanga seats were both won by the Jamaat-e-Islami.

The ISI will use its leverage over the Jamaat and hence would look to push illegal immigrants in large numbers.

Officials say that there are multiple groups that are working along side the ISI to carry out this large operation. Apart from the Jamaat, the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), too, are in cahoots with the ISI to carry forward this sinister plan.

Several Rohingya refugees in Cox Bazaar have already been identified. They would be taken to the border areas of Bangladesh and then the infiltration bid would be made.

Agency officials say that the push would not be at one go. The numbers would be very small, but the number of operations would be a lot. The Rohingya refugees would be sent in batches of just 50 to 100. In the run-up to the elections in West Bengal, over a 100 such operations would be carried out.

The illegal immigrants have been told not to mingle too much with the locals in West Bengal. They would be sent to areas in West Bengal which have a Hindu majority. The idea is to outdo the majority population in a bid to effect a demographic change of large proportions, officials say.

In the run up to this operation, the many Madrasas that are operational along the border areas have been instructed to prepare themselves. The Madrasas would be used to house these persons. Those working at these Madrasas have been told to coordinate with the touts on either side of the border to ensure that the illegal immigration takes place without any problem.

Officials say that effecting a demographic change is extremely dangerous. It creates fissures within the society and the majority community is bound to get upset that they are being outnumbered. To understand what demographic change does, one must visit the Murshidabad case of six years back.

The majority are clearly outnumbered by the illegal immigrants. Since their landing in India several years back, many have indulged in criminal activity such as narco trade, cattle smuggling and counterfeiting. They outnumbered the locals and then indulged in land grabbing. With the money they made through criminal activity, they even purchased lands at cheaper rates.

With money and might, they decided that it was time to declare Murshidabad independent of India. However an operation by the Intelligence agencies bust this plot. The agencies say that in addition to this large scale illegal immigrants, the security agencies must also keep a close watch on the activities of terror groups such as the Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HuJI) and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). There have been concrete inputs that these terror groups would look to strike in West Bengal as well as the northeastern states ahead or during the elections.