SHILLONG, Oct 23 - Due to the ethnic similarity of the people living along the Indo-Bangladesh border, militant groups have been able to easily assimilate into the local populace in Bangladesh in order to avoid detection and deportation to India, the BSF said today.
Reacting to the recent surrender of Hynnniewtrep National Liberation Council general secretary Chesterfield Thangkhiew who slipped into India after being holed up in Bangladesh for years, BSF Inspector General of Meghalaya Frontier, Laletendu Mohanti, said that periodic information is provided about militants from India who have hideouts in Bangladesh.
On Thangkiew, Mohanti said that the BSF did not know about his movement from Bangladesh to India, and that the State police coordinated this movement.
�Intelligence agencies share information with each other on a need-to-know basis. We did not know about the HNLC militant, but we constantly share information,� he added.
Ethnic tribals from Meghalaya are spread across several districts of Bangladesh like Sylhet, Maulivbazar, Habibganj, Dhaka, Chittagong, Sunamganj and other places. A majority of these people live just across the border and are involved in the plantation industry. However, some have risen amongst the ranks. For instance, Pramod Mankin was the first Garo MP in Bangladesh. His son, Jewel Arengh, was elected from the Mymensing constituency in the Parliament after his father. Moreover, the current under-15 women�s football team captain, Maria Manda, is also a Garo from Mymensing.
�Similarity of the population across the international border and also militants having aliases and marrying into the local population make the task of detection difficult for the security personnel,� Mohanti said while interacting with a select group of journalists at the frontier headquarters here.
He added that the present Bangladesh Government has no role in militants seeking hideouts in that country. The Bangladesh Government would in fact want these elements out of their country if they knew about their exact whereabouts, Mohanti maintained.
