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G Vinayak in Guwahati
India's new Eastern Army commander has warned that Pakistan plans to create turmoil in the East and the Northeast and the people must be educated about the looming dangers.
Lieutenant General J S Verma, who takes over as general officer commanding-in-chief, Eastern Command, at Kolkata on August 1, was speaking to reporters in Guwahati on Tuesday.
"If it is Kashmir today, it could be the Northeast tomorrow," Gen Verma warned. "One must remember what Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had said about Kashmir not being the only unfinished business."
India's porous eastern frontiers are turning out to be a breeding ground for Pakistani intelligence operatives, he said.
"Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is trying to target India's seven Northeastern states through the unfenced border the region shares with Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar," said the general, who was the commander till Wednesday of the Assam-based 4 corps guarding the frontiers with China, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
"Unless we are vigilant, anyone can enter the region from across the border to destabilise the country," he said.
There have been intelligence reports in recent days suggesting that the ISI, following stepped up security along the Kashmir boundary, was trying to expand its activities in the country through the northeast, taking advantage of the region's porous borders with the neighbouring countries.
"We need some kind of a control like passports for entry of nationals from the neighbouring countries like Nepal and Bhutan," the commander said.
Nepalese and Bhutanese citizens do not require passports or permits to enter India, with the two Himalayan kingdoms having bilateral arrangements with the Indian government for free movement of their nationals.
Lt Gen Verma said ISI operatives were trying to use certain madrassas located along the 4,000-km-long porous border with Bangladesh.
"The government should make mandatory registration of all religious schools, besides the source of income of all such institutions be made transparent to dispel doubts and misgivings," he said.
The unfenced international border with Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar has for long been used by at least 30-odd militant groups active in India's northeast for setting up camps in the adjoining nations.
The new Eastern Army commander said the ISI was trying to infiltrate into the Indian security system for getting classified information and other vital details about troop movements and logistics.
"We are always alive to such threats and have been taking all precautions to foil such designs of ISI," he said.
In July, a soldier in the paramilitary Assam Rifles was arrested in Meghalaya for his alleged links with the ISI. Interrogations revealed the soldier was leaking information on Indian troop deployments and providing maps of various vital defence installations in the region to the ISI.
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