Thank you, Bangladesh

Bangladesh has played a significant role in battling militancy in the region, especially in the Northeast of India, and the Sheikh Hasina-led government should be thanked for that, says leading Indian security analyst Jaideep Saikia.

"The [1947] partition has made the northeastern states closer to Bangladesh than it has to the rest of India. So, our fortunes and misfortunes are somehow interrelated with Bangladesh, willy-nilly," said Saikia, who is originally from Assam and now in Dhaka on a two-day visit, during an interview with The Daily Star yesterday.

"And we are fortunate that we have a partner in Sheikh Hasina. I, on behalf of the people of Assam, thank Bangladesh, Hasina in particular, for her uncompromising stance against terrorism of any sort."

With over two dozen published and presented academic papers on security and strategy, Saikia is an expert on militancy in South Asia, especially in the Bangladesh, Northeast India, Myanmar, and China region.

The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a separatist outfit operating in Assam, was allowed to use Bangladesh territory during the BNP-Jamaat rule between 2001 and 2006, which became a threat to the security of Northeast India, he said.

However, Hasina cracked down on the ULFA leaders after returning to power in 2008, following up on India's long-standing requests.

The insurgencies in the region are under control to a considerable extent in the Northeast, except in the state of Manipur, he said, adding that after Sheikh Hasina acted against the Northeast insurgencies, they have all now have moved away.

Asked if the ULFA may return to Bangladesh, Saikia referred to the 10-truck arms haul in Chittagong in 2004, and said: "If the non-Awami League parties who were in power back then, were to return, it would form kind of a conducive atmosphere for the ULFA and such other groups to return here.

"But the ULFA has run out of steam in such a way that they won't think of coming back to Bangladesh."

Saikia, who has authored or edited at least 10 books on regional security and terrorism, thinks the middle-east terror group Islamic State now poses the gravest threat to Bangladesh.

Though the ISIS initially had focused on the Iraq and Syria region, "they now are slowly changing their tactics," he said.

"To upset the counter attacks it is experiencing by the allied forces and others, they are now concentrating on the far enemy … Homegrown Islamist or fundamentalist groups such as JMB, JMJB or Huji are now trying to piggyback on to the ISIS.

"They are trying to make themselves franchisees of the ISIS. The Islamic State is probably in cahoots with this aspect."

Otherwise they would have denied the reported claims of responsibilities for the recent murders of people, including online writers, Saikia continued.

"The Burdwan Blast in India's West Bengal in 2014 by Jama'tul Mujahideen Bangladesh and the arrest of JMB cadres in Barpeta district are important pointers that the JMB operatives have gone across borders.

He stressed the need for formulating a "comprehensive and well-calibrated policy" to combat militancy of this nature.

"You cannot actually confine terrorism of this kind to a particular geographical area, especially in the Bangladesh-Northeast (India)-Rohingya (Myanmar) belt.

"It is very important at this point of time to understand that all the [terror] groups being in one region is a big disadvantage for us … Bangladesh, India and Myanmar should together sit down and have a conclave to come up with a comprehensive and well-calibrated counterterrorism policy," he added.