****The DGFI was used as a political apparatus by the military rulers to establish and expand their political clout, to help set up political parties, to bribe politicians and to make new parties and break the old ones.***

INVESTIGA TIONSinto the cases of Chittagong arms recovery and the grenade attack on AL meeting on 21 August 2004, have prima-

facie established the complicity of the NSI and DGFI, in both the incidents.

This certainly calls for a reappraisal of the working and utilisation of state agencies, particularly those that work to help protect national security and prevent hostile intelligence from preying on our assets. What we notice most regrettably is that in these two instances it is the very security of the state that was put at stake by those that are supposed to help guarantee it

The arms recovery established the speculation that Bangladesh was a secure transit route of illegal arms transfer, and even worse, it proved the accusations of the strategic and security community in India that the Indian dissidents were being sustained, if not directly sponsored, by Bangladesh, given that it is now very clear as to who the arms were meant for. Neither did it help in defending our credentials as a country dedicated to curbing proliferation of illegal arms, or that of a friendly neighbour who was doing its part to prevent its territory from being used as a springboard for the hostile elements of the neighbouring country, against that neighbour.

What is most worrisome is that,

reportedly, the arms and ammunitions were procured from another friendly country by these two agencies. Could this have been possible without the knowledge of their controlling authorities? It does no credit to the country or the government of the day to suggest that the NSI and DGFI were working on their own volition.

The 21 August grenade attack was a most dastardly episode and only Providence knows what might have happened if the intended targets were affected. We saw for the first time that a lethal area weapon was used and

that too of service category, and, by all indications, the attack was carried out by well-trained persons. And what we had expressed in these very columns after the attack and several times since then have been borne out by the investigation subsequently.

It is very important for us to understand the significance of the two incidents. Each in its own way had the potential of impacting on the political and security scenario of the country and the region with severe long term implications. It is a deeply distressing thought that these agencies were

working to fulfill the political objectives of a government, or its strategic objective, with internal as well as regional and international ramifications.

Thus we are compelled to revisit the issue of the role of the intelligence agencies, or to be more specific, address the fundamental question, that of appropriate utilisation of those organisations whose resources are geared entirely towards the security of the state. Of the two intelligence agencies, the DGFI has come under scrutiny and have been more severely

criticised than the other. And on this we would like to dwell for now.

It is worth repeating what we had said in this very column in March 2009. The DGFI was used as a political apparatus by the military rulers to establish and expand their political clout, to help set up political parties, to bribe politicians and to make new parties and break the old ones. It was the natural inclination of the military rulers to fall back on an agency they thought they could trust fully, these being banned by persons of their choosing.

But regrettably, the elected political governments too, over the years since 1991, have continued to use the DGFI in the same vein, only more so. The prime ministers, being the defence minister too, found it a very handy tool. The transgression of its TOR by the DGFI is not a recent phenomenon, nor is it entirely the doings of the military intelligence unit. While there was no scope for it to dabble in or influence politics, and in spite of having no specific role as such, it was nonetheless made to get involved in internal politics in much the same manner as was done by the ISI in Pakistan from the mid 1970s.

An intelligence unit will function only as efficiently as it is tasked. It has been so with all other intelligence resources available in the country. Most of them have been used to deter, and attack opponents of the government for purely partisan interest, and as investigations have revealed, have also been involved in cross border issues, with potentials for devastating fallout. Had that not been so we could have avoided or preempted 21 Aug 2004 and the 17 August 2005 countrywide bomb blasts.

In view of the tangle the intelligence agencies have gotten into, this is an opportunity for the PM and her security advisors to reassess the working of the intelligence agencies and, more importantly, ensure that they are made free of political influence and are oriented towards the interest of the state rather than that of the party in power.

The author is Editor, Defence & Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star