A conduit for arms trafficking?

The location of our territory adjacent to insurgency-laden neighbourhoods makes for our vulnerability as an arms conduit in the region. But perhaps more to the point is this: our low alert and surveillance status coupled with perhaps a 'buyable' immunity might have made us into a favourite transit route for arms trafficking.

Military and strategic experts have a clear and convincing convergence of views on the subject. The caches of weapons are so large and of such sophistication that these could only be meant for combat operations against regular or state armies. None of the country's clandestine outfits has the training and skill to use those arms. Illegal weapons come in piecemeal not in one huge go. The country's outlawed organisations do not have the absorption capacity in real estate terms to ingest, store and distribute such an enormous consignment of clandestine weapons within the country.

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So, in all likelihood, these were headed for the North-East insurgents or the Maoist rebel groups in Nepal.

But the government seems to have already taken a position. The state minister for home affairs has remarked that these modern weapons were intended to run subversive activities in Bangladesh. Obliquely it has even been linked to the opposition's prophesy for the government's downfall by April 30.

Given such an opaque governmental approach to the investigation, we think it is pivotal to the discovery of truth that a non-politicised probe takes place. Furthermore, we must be globally connected and have the Interpol assist us in uncovering the mystery. We should not bury our head in the sand to believe that terrorism and arms smuggling are not an international phenomenon. They very much are so and must be dealt with accordingly.