Not Just Pakistan-Backed Terror: Is Trouble Afoot For India's Northeast With Bangladesh's 'Arakan Plot'?

News18

30-04-2025

According to highly placed sources, representatives of the Arakan Army and CNF were recently in Dhaka and held secret meetings with senior US diplomatic and military officials
In the aftermath of the horrific terror attack at Kashmir's Pahalgam that killed 26 people, Sky News presenter Yalda Hakim grilled Pakistan's defence minister Khawaja Asif for his rogue nation's role in backing terror. But what he said next shocked many and was known to a limited circle: 'We have been doing this dirty work for the United States for about 3 decades… If we had not joined the war against the Soviet Union and later on the war after 9/11, Pakistan's track record was unimpeachable."
But at a time when India is focused on Pakistan and the two nations are on the edge, decades after Islamabad allegedly did the 'dirty work" for the US against the USSR and thousands of kilometres away from Pahalgam, is a new cocktail of problems brewing for India, involving Rohingyas, Chins, and Arakan? Like déjà vu, sources say a US-backed plan is seemingly being hatched, with Pakistan being replaced by Bangladesh, and Pakistani terror outfits that Khawaja Asif referred to being replaced by militant groups of Myanmar, mostly espousing land for their respective ethnicities.
Top sources have told News18 that the Bangladesh military is already in the process of establishing extensive military infrastructure in the Cox's Bazar and Teknaf areas. A large logistical base is being constructed on the Teknaf border to supply food, medicine, and other 'non-lethal" aid to insurgent groups like the Arakan Army (AA) and the Chin National Front (CNF), News18 has learnt.
Meanwhile, the expansion of the Cox's Bazar airport is almost nearing completion. Sources have told News18 that Bangladesh's Muhammad Yunus-led government will convert the facility into a drone base, which may deploy advanced Turkish-made drones with technical support from the United States. This drone hub, sources add, is expected to play a critical role in surveillance and intelligence gathering over the Rakhine State — the disputed territory of Myanmar, from where Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh and India.
India, which is already grappling with its own Rohingya problem, may have another reason to worry, say sources. The union government estimated around 40,000 Rohingya living in India as of 2017, mostly in slums and detention camps across places like Jammu, Hyderabad, Nuh, and Delhi. The same year, the government told the Supreme Court that Rohingyas posed a security risk, citing intelligence reports alleging links between some Rohingya leaders and Pakistan-based militant groups. In 2021, the union home ministry reiterated this stance in the Lok Sabha, stating that illegal Rohingya immigrants were a national security threat, with some engaging in illegal activities.
Cut to 2025, the Centre, which has enough on its plate after the Pakistan-backed Pahalgam terror attack, may have reasons to be worried about Rohingyas, along with other militant ethnic tribes from Myanmar. According to highly placed sources, representatives of the Arakan Army and CNF were recently in Dhaka and held secret meetings with senior US diplomatic and military officials there. Among those involved are Chargé d'Affaires Susan Stevenson, stationed in Naypyidaw, along with Nicole Chulick (Deputy Assistant Secretary, South Central Asia) and Andrew Herrup (Deputy Assistant Secretary, East Asia Pacific). Myanmar-based Susan previously served as principal deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which makes her a perfect fit for the job.
The main goal of these discussions is to devise an effective militia-based warfare strategy against Myanmar's military junta, with which India shares good relations. Bangladesh will play the role of a crucial logistical and intelligence hub, it has been decided.
Bangladeshi journalist Sahidul Hasan Khokon says the West's efforts were an open secret even during Sheikh Hasina's time, but little progress was made. 'Sheikh Hasina had said this in the media when she was in power. She expressed her fear that such a conspiracy was being hatched against Bangladesh and India. The West was involved in the process of forming a new state by breaking up Myanmar. In one of her statements, she alluded to the US and said that a white-skinned person had offered her the establishment of a new state in that region, including St Martin's Island in Bangladesh. Had she agreed to the proposal, she would be able to retain power for the rest of her life. After the fall of Sheikh Hasina, we can now see it in the open," he tells News18.
Recently, ARSA (Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army — a terror outfit) leader Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi and his associates were arrested in Narayanganj, near Dhaka. But sources in Dhaka told News18 the arrest was to coerce ARSA — a key faction—to set aside ideological divides and unite like all other militant factions of Myanmar under one umbrella to fight the junta government. While Rakhine State is the immediate goal, the ultimate goal is an 'Arakan Federation", from the militants' point of view. And here lies the problem. This envisioned federation considers parts of border regions such as Teknaf and Bandarban in Bangladesh and Manipur and Mizoram in India as its own, along with Myanmar's Rakhine state.
'The Arakan Army has already occupied the Bangladesh border. Not just that, they are moving around across Bangladesh. This has been admitted by the Bangladesh government. What we are hearing now is that this new state is being planned to include two districts of Bangladesh, especially Bandarban and Cox's Bazar, and a part of Mizoram and Manipur in India. Naturally, this issue is a matter of concern for both Bangladesh and India," adds Sahidul.
The formation of such a state would not only threaten Bangladesh's territorial integrity but, sources say, could also pose a serious security risk to India's northeastern region, particularly at a time when Manipur has been reeling under ethnic violence between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities for the last two years, resulting in 258 deaths and 60,000 displacements. Since the strife-torn state shares its international border with Myanmar, much of its violence was credited to the influx of refugees from there after the outbreak of civil war in Myanmar's Chin State and Sagaing Region.
With a hot LoC and sensitive Northeast, India may not just have a Pakistan problem, say sources, but a Rohingya-Arakan-Chin issue to contend with as well.
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