The recent US report of terror camps on the Bangladeshi soil targeting West Bengal have put the Border Security Force (BSF) in a tight spot as BSF additional director general (east) B.D. Sharma acknowledged on Sunday of having “no specific intelligence input” about the development.
When asked about the terror camps’ existence in the neighbouring country, he said: “There is some information that a number of insurgency camps are working in remote areas on the other side of the border but we do not have any specific intelligence input in this regard so far.”
On a question about the BSF’s intelligence wing’s effectiveness, Mr Sharma made a startling revelation referring to the faults in the paramilitary troops’ intelligence gathering and observed: “All intelligence inputs do not prove to be correct always after a thorough analysis.”
He added, “We have faltered earlier when others fed misinformation or wrong information to us. Improvement in the intelligence gathering is required as in most cases the intelligence inputs are found to be not specific.”
Mr Sharma, however, mentioned: “Whenever we get information about insurgents working in Bangladesh against India, we alert the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and they take action.
The DG (BGB) has reiterated that the fundamentalist groups would not be allowed to use the Bangladesh soil for activities against India.”
Mr Sharma was referring to the recently concluded BSF-BGB director general conference in Bangladesh.
Last week, United States ambassador to India Nancy Powell had met chief minister Mamata Banerjee at the Writers’ Buildings and held a discussion. During her meeting,
Ms Powell had reportedly alerted Ms Banerjee of terrorists’ infiltration to West Bengal through the Indo-Bangla border.