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INFO RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI PRIORITY 1038
RUEHBI/AMCONSUL MUMBAI PRIORITY 0405
RUEHCG/AMCONSUL CHENNAI PRIORITY 0405
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA PRIORITY 0245
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU PRIORITY 0245
RUEHGO/AMEMBASSY RANGOON PRIORITY 0170
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD PRIORITY 0188
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING PRIORITY 0069
RHMFISS/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RUEILB/NCTC WASHINGTON DC
RUEHCI/AMCONSUL CALCUTTA 1412

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CALCUTTA 000413 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR SCA/INS AND INR 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  9/13/2016 
TAGS: PINR PGOV PREL BG IN NP PK
SUBJECT: SHADOW LINES - INDIA STRUGGLES WITH SECURITY ON ITS EASTERN 
BORDERS 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Henry Jardine, Consul General, AmConsulate 
Calcutta, State. 
REASON: 1.4 (d) 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Henry Jardine, Consul General, AmConsulate 
Calcutta, State. 
REASON: 1.4 (d) 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary.  Porous borders with Bangladesh and Burma 
present a serious threat to India's security that India so far 
has been unable to manage effectively.  In West Bengal, 
politicians,  intelligence, law enforcement, and academics all 
agree on the growing problem of Islamist infiltration into India 
via Bangladesh, though they differ in their assessment of the 
seriousness of the threat.  Intelligence experts sound a much 
more alarmist note about Bangladesh, and to a lesser extent 
about the growing Maoist problem, than do the politicians. 
Though there is growing awareness of these security problems in 
New Delhi, it is very likely that security on the Eastern 
borders will continue to challenge both the national government 
and the states.  End Summary. 
 
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Bangladeshi Influx Provides Potential Terrorists Nexus 
 
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¶2.  (C)  India shares a 4,100 kilometer land border with 
Bangladesh.  A little more than half of that border is with the 
state of West Bengal, with some of it riverine but most of it 
flat and featureless and hard to defend.  Delhi Political 
Counselor and Consulate Poloff met with W. Bengal Home Secretary 
Prasad Ray on September 5.  Ray identified international 
terrorism from Islamists using this border as the real threat on 
the eastern front.  The reasons he cited include the Indian 
Army's focus on the western areas of the country - the border 
with Pakistan - and inadequate resources to cover the Bangladesh 
border with the Border Security Force (BSF) and the internal 
intelligence Special Service Bureau.   Ray noted the recent 
arrests of two Bangladeshis in connection with the Mumbai 
bombings, and said interrogations revealed that those 
responsible for the bombings had entered through the Eastern 
frontier.   Media have highlighted repeatedly that border guards 
on both sides routinely take small bribes to look the other way, 
resulting in thriving cross-border smuggling of goods and 
people. 
 
¶3.  (C) Contributing to illegal migration, political parties in 
¶W. Bengal have used the back and forth flow of people across 
porous borders to court voters by readily providing ration cards 
and identity documents in return for votes.  Aside from settled 
migrants, a large number of people cross the border during 
daylight hours for work in India and return to Bangladesh at 
night.  (Note:  Ray cited the example of rickshaws in the 
northern Bengal city of Shilliguri, which do not operate at 
night because the rickshaw-wallahs have gone home to Bangladesh. 
 End note.)  Ray mentioned that, at the August 2006 
Indo-Bangladesh Home Secretaries meeting, both nations agreed to 
a broad resolution for cooperation in tackling the terrorist 
problem.  The Indians proposed institutionalized mechanisms, but 
have yet to gain agreement on these from Bangladesh. 
 
¶4.  (C)  During meetings with security sector officials and 
academics, however, we heard a more alarmist tone.  According to 
Deputy Director General (DG) of the Police Intelligence Branch 
(Borders) Dilip Mitra, the Bangladesh government is providing 
cover for the growing jihadist movements within Bangladesh that 
are increasingly tied into the political mainstream.  Many law 
enforcement sources also connected Pakistani intelligence 
services with the infiltrations from Bangladesh.  Mitra believes 
that apart from attacks in Kashmir, participants in every recent 
attack in India have been channeled through the East.  Press 
reporting following the Mumbai, Nagpur, Varanasi, and Ahmedabad 
incidents echoed this assertion.  Border Security Force Dep. 
Inspector Gen. S.K. Mitra (no relation) lamented the lack of 
adequate personnel and resources to monitor and stop entry from 
 
CALCUTTA 00000413  002 OF 002 
 
 
Bangladesh. 
 
¶5.  (C)  Both Home Secretary Ray and Dilip Mitra noted that 
there is a de jure border and a de facto border between India 
and Bangladesh.  In Mitra's terms, "There is a 10-12 kilometer 
stretch of land in India that is occupied by Bangladeshi 
migrants who have settled down."  Moreover, there is a huge and 
growing population of Bangladeshis in Calcutta whom security 
forces think may provide operational support to terrorists 
infiltrating across the porous border on their way to operations 
elsewhere in India.  (Comment.  Ray's less-alarmist tone 
probably stems from his concern for maintaining peaceful 
relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in W. Bengal.  During 
times of communal tensions, the GOWB has favored dialogue as a 
means of resolving issues.  The GOWB has taken a similar 
approach to the growing number of madrassas in the state, 
co-opting and monitoring the teaching curriculum in the schools. 
 Interestingly, Ray believed that insurgents and Islamists of 
any type had not (and presumably would not) act in their W. 
Bengal safehaven in order to continue their operations in other 
parts of the country without problem.  End Comment). 
 
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Maoists - the less severe home grown problem? 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
 
¶6.  (C)  Ray spoke in much more detail about Maoist activity in 
¶W. Bengal.  He did not consider the Maoists a threat comparable 
to international terrorists.  Ray analyzed Maoist presence in W. 
Bengal as less severe than that in other states.  In his view, 
new Maoist recruits in the state were not true believers in the 
cause, but mostly desperately poor tribals looking for food and 
work.  (Comment:  This may be due to the tendency in India to 
equate Maoists with the Naxalite Movement, which originated in 
¶W. Bengal, or the fact that the CPI-Maoist was originally a part 
of the CPM.  It also reflects a belief that the CPM is a party 
that represents the poor, and therefore, can turn the poor away 
from extremism through political action.  End Comment.)  Ray 
acknowledged that the border with Nepal was virtually open, and 
stated that the CPM was hoping that the Nepali Maoists would 
enter Nepal's mainstream political process. 
 
¶7.  (C)  Journalists and academics that we met linked the 
Maoists in Nepal more closely to the Maoists operating in 
India's "red corridor" which stretches from Nepal to Andhra 
Pradesh and includes western areas of W. Bengal, as well as 
Jharkand, Chattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh.  A number of 
journalists spoke in detail about the ease by which small arms - 
mostly Chinese made - crossed into northeastern states from 
Myanmar.  They highlighted for us on maps routes used by Maoists 
to smuggle arms from Nepal to the south. 
 
¶8.  (C) COMMENT:  Perceptions of the terrorist threat from 
Bangladesh spanned a broad spectrum among contacts.  Views 
ranged from seeing an extreme danger of "Pakistanization" of 
Bangladesh to a more circumscribed characterization of 
individual infiltration and small scale activities.  However, 
all contacts agreed that there is growing evidence of terrorist 
links to Bangladesh.  With much of India's military and security 
forces focused on the Pakistan border, the Bangladesh border is 
seen as a soft underbelly for terrorist infiltration. 
 
¶9. (C) COMMENT CONTINUED: In turn, the limited concern expressed 
by officials regarding the Maoist threat in W. Bengal is 
surprising given the continued targeting and brutal killing of 
CPM officials in the state.  The downplaying of the Maoists may 
be to attributable to the group being an ideological challenge 
to the governing CPM and therefore, too sensitive an issue to 
fully highlight. POL and CG Calcutta will continue to follow the 
issues of border instability and internal insurgencies. END 
COMMENT. 
 
 
JARDINE 
HJARDINE