The Sheikh Hasina regime, which returned to power for the fourth successive term following the January 7 so-called election in Bangladesh, has not agreed to an Indian suggestion that its territory be used to launch targeted operations against the rapidly advancing Arakan Army in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine State, well-placed sources in Bangladesh’s security establishment revealed.
The suggestion for using Bangladesh territory – the Rakhine State borders the sensitive Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) comprising the Bandarban, Rangamati and Khagrachari districts – was placed before Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina by India’s National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval during his one-day visit to Dhaka on February 3.
Doval was accompanied by three senior Indian security officials and army officers.
The team flew to Dhaka in an Indian Air Force (IAF) Bombardier plane and stayed overnight in a special facility within the Dhaka cantonment.
It is, however, not clear whether the Doval’s suggestion involved the use of Indian soldiers or special forces of a third country.
During the meeting, Sheikh Hasina, who was assisted by senior Bangladeshi Army officers, including her Military Advisor Major General (retd) Tarique Siddiqui, Doval conveyed Indian concerns that the pro-China Arakan Army not be helped in any form by the Bangladesh Army or other security forces stationed along the now militarily active CHT-Rakhine State border areas.
While Dhaka is said to have assured New Delhi that its security forces will adopt a hands-off position insofar as the Arakan Army is concerned, Sheikh Hasina publicly declared (following the meet with Doval) that the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) troops must observe utmost restraint in the face of regular shelling, machine gun-firing and movement of armed insurgents near the border in the Rakhine State.
Following the Doval-led team’s departure to Delhi, the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry summoned Myanmar’s ambassador on February 6 to explain the cross-border shelling.
Bangladeshi officials subsequently handed over a protest letter to the Myanmar Ambassador Aung Kyaw Moe.
The Doval-led team shared critical information, including quick and rapid seizure of sophisticated weapons and ammunition by the Rohingya living in the border areas of the Rakhine State.
Reports from the militarily disturbed border zone indicate that Rohingya guerrillas have been gathering and stashing away large caches of arms and ammunition that have been abandoned by Myanmar Army soldiers fleeing the Arakan Army attacks and onslaught.
Wooden pallets and other military issue metallic boxes containing ammunition and mortars, machine guns, light machine guns, AK-47 rifles and other small arms have been carried away Rohingya men.
These, Indian and Bangladeshi security officials suspect, could be used in the coming weeks and months by the Rohingya to precipitate the crisis in the border zone.
The armed conflict involving the Mynamar Army and the pro-China Arakan Army escalated in middle of January this year even as several towns were captured by the insurgent organisation which is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance.
The Arakan Army has also overrun several Myanmar Army camps, forcing the military junta troops and other security personnel to flee the battleground and take shelter in some parts of bordering Bandarban in the CHT.
Over 260 Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) personnel have already fled to areas that on the Bangladesh side of the border.
Already two civilian deaths have occurred due to incessant firing from across the border. A number of border residents on the Bangladesh side have sustained bullet injuries.
Tomru and Ghumdhum in Bandarban are among the worst affected in the CHT. Already 180 families from these two locations have been evacuated to safe zones.
