B.RAMAN
In an article written on June 12,2004, I had inter
alia stated as follows:
“ For its intelligence-collection and covert action
operations directed against India, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
uses four external bases - Kathmandu, Dubai, Bangkok and Colombo.
“While Kathmandu and Dubai are used by the ISI for
intelligence collection as well as covert actions, Bangkok is used as an
alternate sanctuary and as a clandestine meeting place to brief and debrief its
agents in India. After the Mumbai blasts of March,1993, the ISI had the
perpetrators of the terrorist attack shifted to Bangkok from Karachi and kept
them there for some time in different hotels in order to prevent the detection
of their links with the ISI by the US diplomatic missions in Pakistan, which
were enquiring into Indian allegations in this regard.
“Past evidence indicated that the main interest of
the ISI in using Colombo as a base was to collect intelligence about
developments in sensitive Indian nuclear and missile establishments, many of
which are located in South India, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
“For collecting intelligence about these
establishments, the ISI generally uses Sri Lankan Tamil-speaking Muslims
visiting India as well as South Indians visiting Colombo. Colombo also serves
as a convenient transit point for arranging clandestine visits of Indians
co-operating with the ISI to Karachi by the flights of the Pakistan
International Airlines without any entry of their visits in their passports.
“There has been no evidence so far of the ISI using
Colombo as a base for covert actions directed against India. However, the
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) has been showing increasing interest in taking jihad to
the Muslims of the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. There have been persistent
reports of the beginning of a radicalisation of small sections of the
Tamil-speaking Muslim youth of the Eastern Province. During the riots in the
Eastern Province in the middle of 2002, pamphlets in the name of a so-called
Osama Brigade came to notice. The Chennai media had reported subsequently that
some members of an organisation called the Muslim Defence Force (MDF) arrested
by the Chennai Police had been in touch with one Abu Hamza of the LET based in
the Gulf and that they were to meet him clandestinely in Sri Lanka. However,
the meeting did not materialise as Abu Hamza did not come.
“The LET is very close to the ISI and it would not
have taken its initial moves to explore the possibility of using Sri Lanka as a
clandestine base for its activities and for creating sleeper cells there
without the knowledge and prior clearance of the ISI.
“The recent investigations into the clandestine
nuclear proliferation activities of A.Q.Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistan
atom bomb, have revealed that Bukhary Seyed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan Tamil
Muslim of Indian origin, married in Malaysia and with business interests in
Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, was one of the external kingpins of Pakistan's
clandestine nuclear procurement network. In a speech at the National Defence
University of Washington DC in February last, President Bush had described this
Sri Lankan Tamil-speaking Muslim as the "chief financial officer and
money-launderer" of A.Q.Khan's clandestine operations.
“In the past, the ISI had posted its officers in
junior and middle level clerical posts as well as in diplomatic posts in the
Pakistani High Commission in Colombo. While it had never posted its officers as
the head of the Pakistani diplomatic mission, Hussain Haqqani, a journalist who
was then allegedly close to the ISI, was posted as the Pakistani High
Commissioner to Sri Lanka during the first tenure of Nawaz Sharif as the Prime
Minister (1990-93).
“The "Jang", the Urdu daily of Pakistan,
has now reported that the Pervez Musharraf regime has decided to post Col
(retd) Bashir Wali, former Director of the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau (IB),
as the new High Commissioner to Sri Lanka. It is not clear at what stage is the
proposal. Has his name been already sent to the Sri Lankan Government for
agrement? If so, has the Sri Lankan Government given its consent?
“The IB is part of Pakistan's Ministry of the
Interior. Like its Indian counterpart, it used to be a largely Police
organisation, but since the days of the late Gen.Zia-ul-Haq, there has been a
gradual militarisation of the organisation. Musharraf has made it for all
practical purposes a wing of the ISI, with Lt.Gen.Ehsan-ul-Haq, the
Director-General of the ISI, exercising powers of supervision and co-ordination
over it.
“It was reported in the Pakistani media last year
that Musharraf had tried to send Brig. (retd) Ejaz Shah, who used to handle
Omar Sheikh, the accused in the kidnapping and murder case of Daniel Pearl, the
US journalist,in the ISI as the Pakistani High Commissioner to Australia, but
the Australian Government did not reportedly give its agrement. He then tried
to send him as Ambassador to Indonesia, which also did not give its agrement.
It has recently been reported that he has since been posted to the IB to
supervise operations relating to India.
“If the "Jang" report is correct, the
posting of a former Director of the IB to Colombo as High Commissioner could
have serious implications for India's national security. The Government of
India should immediately express its concerns to the Sri Lankan Government and
oppose his being based in Colombo. “
2. Subsequently, on June 18,2004, I wrote as
follows:
"The Island", a daily of Sri Lanka, has
reported as follows on June 17,2004: "Pakistan with the concurrence of Sri
Lanka has appointed Colonel (retd) Bashir Wali as Islamabad's top envoy here,
Sri Lankan and Pakistan High Commission officials said. "He is expected to
take over the mission before end of this month," an official said. "We
don't see any reason to disagree with Pakistan's choice," the official
said, dismissing concerns over the planned appointment among a section of
political analysts in India."
“For Col. Wali, this would be the second posting in
the Pakistani High Commission in Colombo. He had earlier served as the head of
the Pakistani intelligence set-up in the High Commission in the 1990s and then
as an intelligence officer in the Pakistani High Commission in London.
“It was during his previous stay in Colombo
that Al Ummah, the terrorist organisation
of Tamil Nadu, expanded its activities in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and , during
his stay in London, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) set up secret cells in the UK to
recruit volunteers for its jihadi terrorist operations from amongst the members
of the Muslim community in the UK. This ultimately led to a ban on the LET by
the British Government.
“It is reported that Col. Wali was and still is an
active member of the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), which acts as the cover organisation
of Pakistani jihadi organisations such as the LET, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
(HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and
helps them in their recruitment of cadres not only in Pakistan, but also in
other countries of the world. During his earlier stay in Colombo, he had
reportedly sent a number of Tamil Muslims from the Eastern Province to Karachi
to study in the Binori madrasa on scholarships provided by the TJ. Mufti
Nizamuddin Shamzai of this madrasa, who was considered the mentor and god
father of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Pakistani jihadi and anti-Shia
organisations, was assassinated by unidentified elements in Karachi on May
30,2004.
“While in Pakistan, Col. Wali used to attend
regularly the annual conventions of the LET at Muridke, near Lahore, and was
also attached to the Taliban as an adviser for some months in the 1990s. He was
considered a protege of Brig (retd).Imtiaz, who headed the political division
of the ISI during the tenure of the late Gen.Zia-ul-Haq, and had helped Imtiaz
in running the ISI operations for training the terrorists from India's Punjab
in Pakistani territory and arming them.
“When Benazir Bhutto came to power in 1988, she
sacked Imtiaz, who was taken by Nawaz, the then Chief Minister of Pakistani
Punjab, as his intelligence adviser. After the sacking of Benazir by the then
President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1990, Nawaz, on taking over as the Prime
Minister, appointed Imtiaz as the Director of the IB, a post which has since
been upgraded as Director-General. Imtiaz took Wali into the IB and made him
responsible for assisting the terrorists in Punjab and J&K. The training of
the terrorists from Mumbai, responsible for
the blasts of March,1993, was
allegedly organisded by him on behalf of the ISI in association with Dawood Ibrahim,
the mafia leader, who was designated by the US in October last year as an
international terrorist because of his linkages with Al Qaeda and the LET.
“ Now that the Sri Lankan Government seems to have
confronted India with a fait accompli by agreeing to the appointment of a
die-hard anti- Indian sponsor of terrorism against India as the head of the
Pakistani diplomatic mission in Colombo, India has to carefully analyse the
implications of his presence in Colombo and take the necessary follow-up
action. His presence in Colombo will pose a threat not only to India's national
security, but also to stability and law and order in Sri Lanka's Eastern
Province. “
3.On August 14,2006,seven persons, including four
special commandos of the Special Diplomatic Security Unit, providing VVIP
escort to the vehicle of Col.(retd) Bashir Wali
were killed in a three-wheeler explosion that targeted the military
convoy that was escorting the diplomatic vehicle of Col.Bashir Wali in the heart of Colombo city, on Flower Road
in Kolpity. Col. Wali escaped unhurt and was subsequently withdrawn to
Pakistan.
4.Commenting on the incident, I wrote as follows:
“Since taking over as the Pakistani High
Commissioner in Colombo, he ( Col.Wali) has been very active in promoting
military-military relationship between Sri Lanka and Pakistan and liaison
between the intelligence agencies of the two countries. “ It was suspected that
the LTTE targeted him because of this.
5.The Indian media has reported last week the
arrest of a suspected spy of an ISI officer posted in Colombo by the Tamil Nadu
Police. Our media has stated as follows:
“The arrest of Dhameem Anzari, the alleged spy nabbed while attempting
to pass on sensitive information to the ISI in Colombo, has reportedly exposed
an increase in the activities of the Pakistan intelligence agency in Sri Lanka.
Anzari had reportedly confessed to Q Branch police during initial interrogation
that the ISI, which operated out of the Pakistani Embassy in Colombo, had
increased its activities of monitoring the southern states of India. Police
said Anzari (35), son of Abdul Rahman of Thanjavur, went to the Pakistan
consulate (High Commission in Colombo) and met Boss alias Ameer Subbiah
Siddique, said to be the man in charge of the TN unit of the ISI at the
Consulate. Ameer reportedly had asked Anzari to get him security details of
installations in India, especially TN, and promised a hefty sum in return. He
tried to send the information online but it failed to reach Ameer. So, he was
waiting to hand it over to Ameer personally. Anzari took footage and photos of
security installations in South India and reportedly told several acquaintances
that he was making a movie to portray how secure India was.”
6.While the activities of the ISI and the Pakistani
IB from the Pakistani High Commission in Colombo have been well known in the
past, this is possibly the first time a suspected Tamil agent of the ISI
operated from Colombo has been caught. He needs to be thoroughly interrogated
to establish whether he was operating alone or was part of a network.
7.In the light of the details ascertained from him,
our counter-intelligence capability for monitoring the activities of the
Pakistani intelligence from their station in Colombo needs to be reviewed to
remove any loopholes.
(The writer
is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi,
and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate
of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter @SORBONNE75)
