JOIN USIn the wake of the recent killing of 18 soldiers in Manipur, the PMO has asked the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) to coordinate with intelligence agencies and assess China’s role in reviving militancy in the North-East.
National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval is overseeing the efforts to assess and compile evidences of China’s role in bringing some of the North-East militant outfits together.
Sources in the government told Deccan Herald that evidences put together by the NSCS in coordination with the intelligence agencies would be used by New Delhi to raise the issue with Beijing more aggressively in future diplomatic engagements. New Delhi, according to sources, already received substantial intelligence inputs suggesting that Chinese agencies had prodded nine militant organisations to come together and float a joint forum called United National Liberation Front of Western South Asia (UNLFWSA).
A senior government official said that New Delhi’s “security concerns” had been conveyed to Beijing in recent bilateral diplomatic engagements, including during the NSA’s meeting with Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi in New Delhi in March and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China in May. Beijing of course denied its role in fomenting trouble in India. New Delhi is now preparing to confront Beijing with evidences compiled by the intelligence agencies.
Beijing’s move to renew its support to insurgent outfits in the North-East came at a time when New Delhi indicated its willingness to step up its ties with the US and has also started responding to the communist country’s bid to expand its strategic footprints in the region. The UNLFWSA claimed responsibility for the attack on the Army in Chandel district of Manipur last Thursday.
S S Khaplang, who leads a faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, is the chairman of the UNLFWSA. But the elusive leader of United Liberation Front of Asom, Paresh Barua, is understood to be playing the key role in chalking out strategy, procuring weapons and coordinating with all outfits which joined the forum. Barua called up media-persons in Guwahati to claim responsibility for the attack. Intelligence agencie in the recent past tracked Barua at Ruili in Yunnan Province of China.
Sources said that intercepts of Barua’s calls to suspected operatives of intelligence agencies of China, tracking of his calls to media-persons to Yunnan and certain communications between Chinese operatives and rebel leaders regarding formation of the UNLFWSA were among the evidences, which the National Security Council Secretariat was compiling to confront Beijing.