BSF on alert along Bangla border to counter ISI threat
With Pakistan in a retaliatory mode against India along the western front in the aftermath of New Delhi’s offensive under Operation Sindoor, the BSF is maintaining high vigil along the eastern front, with intelligence inputs available that ISI operatives have been making efforts for quite some time to re-establish training camps of extremist organisation United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in Bangladesh.
Sources told The Tribune that personnel along the India-Bangladesh border on the eastern front had been put on high alert to monitor and thwart any possible efforts by the ISI to push in extremists, including those possibly associated with ULFA, taking advantage of the prevailing tensions between India and Pakistan on the western front.
People aware of the developments said though the situation on the eastern front was normal and deployments were currently as per the requirement, alertness had been amplified in the wake of Operation Sindoor and Pakistan’s retaliatory attacks targeting Samba, RS Pura and Rajouri among other towns in Jammu and Kashmir and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan.
While the BSF has cancelled the leave of its personnel and beefed up patrolling along the western front by increasing vigilance and sending reinforcements there, the eastern front as of now has not reported any “abnormal activities”.
On Friday, BSF personnel apprehended nine Bangladeshi nationals in North Bengal sector. Incidentally, most of them were working as labourers in Rajasthan for the past one year, sources said.
The threat perception on the eastern frontier, however, has emerged in the past few months, especially after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh in August last year.
The Tribune had reported on February 27 how the ISI, in collaboration with operatives in Bangladesh, was working to re-establish training camps of ULFA near the border areas, signalling an escalation in efforts to destabilise India’s northeast region.
Highly placed sources indicated that ISI officials had even met ULFA leader Paresh Baruah, who reportedly travelled to Bangladesh in January 2025.
The sources had revealed that several ULFA training camps had been reopened in Bangladesh close to Assam and other northeastern states over the past few months.
These camps had been shut down during Hasina’s regime. The revival of these camps coincided with political unrest in Bangladesh, which led Hasina to flee the country on August 5, 2024, and the interim Mohammad Yunus-led government to take charge.
The concern among Indian intelligence circles regarding the increased presence of the ISI in regions bordering West Bengal and Bangladesh was amplified after they had intercepted wireless communication in Arabic, Urdu and Bengali from across the Bangladesh border earlier this year.
With the situation on the western front escalating on a daily basis, New Delhi is also maintaining a high alert on the eastern front to counter any possible effort to destabilise the region by Islamabad.
India