| Wednesday , October 29 , 2014 |
Burdwan target Hasina: Report | |||
| OUR BUREAU | |||
New Delhi, Oct. 28: The Burdwan blast probe has uncovered a suspected plot to assassinate Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and carry out a coup, Reuters quoted three senior Indian security officials as saying. “The strategy was to hit the political leaders of the country and demolish the democratic infrastructure of Bangladesh,” a senior Indian home ministry official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “This was all being planned on Indian soil and we could have been blamed if there was an attack.” The Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen also planned to assassinate Bangladesh’s main Opposition leader, Khaleda Zia, the Indian officials told Reuters. The security officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on the record, did not say how the militants planned to carry out the assassinations. Bangladesh did not comment directly on the assertions that Prime Minister Hasina had been the target of a plot but said it had been unofficially told of a terror threat to top politicians. Asaduzzaman Khan, Bangladesh’s junior home minister, told Reuters: “We have received this information unofficially from India about a terror threat to top politicians in Dhaka.” In most of the briefings with domestic news organisations in Delhi today, home ministry officials are not known to have mentioned the alleged plot to assassinate Hasina and Zia. After Reuters, a western news agency, despatched the report around 8pm, the home ministry officials this newspaper contacted declined to go on record or confirm the quote attributed to their colleague. A section of the Bangladeshi media had yesterday hinted at the India-based plot against Hasina. But home ministry officials in New Delhi had denied the suggestions yesterday. The signal from the home ministry to Reuters suggests the Indian government is keen that Bangladesh is kept abreast of the suspicions even before any official despatch reaches there. The Centre is expected to hand over a dossier to Bangladesh with details of the plan by members of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen. Yesterday, national security adviser Ajit Doval had visited the Burdwan house where the blasts took place and met chief minister Mamata Banerjee to discuss the situation. Referring to Doval’s meeting with the chief minister, an internal security source told this newspaper today that Mamata had conceded that more could have been done and promised cooperation. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1141029/jsp/frontpage/story_18976553.jsp#.VFBZWDSUeSo |
