Bangladesh unrest heightens terror threats to India
While the protests in Bangladesh seemed to be spearheaded by students, intelligence sources indicate that active terrorist groups, such as Bangladesh's Ansarullah Bangla Team and Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), were responsible for the violence, especially directed towards minority Hindus.
Bangladesh Unrest: According to intelligence sources, the recent instability in Bangladesh, which resulted in the overthrow of the Awami League administration led by Sheikh Hasina, has increased the threat that terrorist groups pose to India. While it seemed like students were spearheading the protests in Bangladesh, intelligence sources indicate that active terrorist organisations were behind the violence, especially directed towards the Hindu minority.
Among these, sources said that Bangladesh's Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) and Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) have collaborated to carry out terrorist strikes in the northeastern regions of India.
Additional information indicates that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan was directly involved in providing support to Jamaat-e-Islami and other outlawed organisations, such as ABT, during the 'regime change' operation in Bangladesh.
LeT and ABT started working together in 2022 when they set up a base in Bengal with the intention of carrying out strikes in India. After hearing about an event in Tripura when mosques were damaged, LeT teamed up with ABT to launch attacks on locations in the region where Hindus predominate. Information received in 2022 suggests that between fifty and one hundred ABT cadres intended to enter Tripura.
ABT-affiliated terrorists were apprehended in Assam that same year, underscoring the threat's increasing intensity.
ANSARULLAH BANGLA TEAM AND ITS EVOLUTION
With financing from non-governmental organisations, Jamaat ul-Muslimeen was first established in 2007; however, because to financial difficulties, the organisation faded until resurfacing as Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) in 2013. ABT was outlawed in 2015; it later rebranded as Ansar al-Islam, which was outlawed in 2017.
Since then, Ansar al-Islam has established itself as the branch of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in Bangladesh, taking credit for multiple assassinations of secular and progressive citizens of Bangladesh. About 425 ABT/Ansar al-Islam members have been detained in Bangladesh since 2013, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, highlighting the group's ongoing threat.
ISLAMIC TERRORIST ORGANISATIONS ACTIVE IN BANGLADESH
Currently, nine major Islamic terrorist organisations are active in Bangladesh:
1. Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT)
2. Ansar al-Islam
3. Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)
4. Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B)
5. Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB)
6. Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)
7. Purba Banglar Communist Party (PBCP)
8. Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS)
9. Islamic State (ISIS)
Renowned for her closeness to New Delhi, former prime minister Sheikh Hasina took decisive action to dismantle these terror groups.
Although the original goal of the protests was to remove the 30% government employment reserve for the families of liberation war heroes from 1971, the ongoing deaths raise grave questions about who is really behind this brutality.
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