The Kamatapur Liberation Organisation, comprising of the Koch-Rajbonshi community as well as Bodos, Bengali Muslims and some Assamese Hindus, has become active on the Indo-Bangladesh border especially in Dhubri district. This group has connections with the National Democratic Front of Bodoland as well as the ULFA. It is believed to have strong links with Pakistan’s Inter-service Intelligence (ISI). The Koch-Rajbonshi community as well as the Bodos (known as Mechs in Bangladesh) and the Muslims, are to be found in Bangladesh as well as Assam and West Bengal. Ethnicity spans national and international boundaries with ease. This latest group finds shelter and succour in the homes of brethren on either side of the border and is steadily emerging as a distinct threat to the soft underbelly of Assam and the North East: the riverine regions as well as the Chicken’s Neck and its bordering areas.

The nether world of the chars and of the Diwanis has opened up to radicalism, to a network of fundamentalism and anti-India hate campaigns, which have access to arms and easy connections to sanctuaries across a porous international border. A new ‘front’ has emerged to plague governance and peace in the North East and its ethnic and religious composition makes it that much more difficult to comprehend and address.

Chapter Nine

Where is Suleman?

There is a story about a man called Suleman which is often told by an intelligence officer from the Border Security Force (BSF). ‘Suleman was from Bangladesh; he managed to infiltrate and even migrate to Guwahati.’ For twelve years he lived there before he was detected. The BSF officer claimed that Suleman even befriended an Indian Army officer and passed on classified army information to Bangladesh. Suleman was then arrested along with an accomplice, a Hindu from Dhubri. They were tortured and ‘confessions’ extracted; Suleman was imprisoned for three months and then pushed into Bangladesh.

Three months seems to be a rather light sentence for alleged espionage, so one tends to question the whole story. But, interestingly, some months after Suleman’s departure to his homeland, the same BSF officer was hailed at the border by a Bangladeshi. It turned out to be the same Suleman. Only this time, he declared, ‘I have become a fisherman.’

How easy is it to cross the border? Mahesh talks about this in his story in chapter two. But I, too, have experienced what it is to walk across.

In 1984, I was on an assignment for the New York Times. I came down from Tura, capital of the Garo Hills district, to a small border post called Dalu, manned by the BSF. The Indian flag fluttered in the morning breeze as the young post commander ordered for sweet tea and biscuits at the small brick and cement building. His surname was Yadav. A few metres away, a band of various ranks from the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the counterpart of the BSF, stood and watched. The Bangladesh flag flew proudly above their building.