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Ship of Terror Arrived Unnoticed

Only very few knew

Wasim Bin Habib and Tuhin Shubhra Adhikary
The distant rumble of trawler engines broke the silence of the spring night of April 1, 2004. Around 60 men shrugged off sleep which threatened to come over them as they waited in the tranquillity of Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited (CUFL) jetty for quite sometime. A very few of them were aware of the dangerous mission they were to embark upon.
With the clock ticking away somewhere between 10:00pm and 11:00pm, two trawlers, full of wooden boxes hidden under sacks of salt, rice and husk, berthed at the CUFL jetty. Yards away, seven drivers were ready to move their trucks to help workers load the goods on the trucks with a crane.
The men swung into action, with the crane starting to unload the cargo of boxes from the trawlers and then loading them onto the trucks. The unloading had been progressing quite smoothly, until two police officers popped up there rather unexpectedly.
“Who is the owner of the goods and what sort of goods these are?" asked one of the policemen, named Alauddin.
“These are machinery parts," answered the labourers, but could not tell the name of the owner.
In-charge of Bandar police outpost, Alauddin arrived at the spot around 11:00pm along with Havildar Colam Rasul of the same outpost. Golam was the first to be tipped off that some illegal goods were being unloaded there and he informed Alauddin of the matter.
Finding no owners at that moment, Alauddin brought the matter to the notice of the Deputy Commissioner (port), Abdullahel Baki. The DC asked him to be alert so that the goods could not get through the jetty and told him that additional forces would be arriving there soon.
Alauddin brought the patrol team of the Marine Academy to the spot and put up a barricade there. Sergeant Helal, in the meantime, joined them.
Alauddin and Helal started looking for the owner. Suddenly, seven to eight men came towards them. One of them identified himself as Ulfa (India-based United Liberation Front of Asom) leader Abul Hossain and another as Hafizur Rahman. Ulfa is the Assamese separatist group, seeking to establish a sovereign Assam through an armed struggle. The Indian government has banned the group, citing it as a terrorist organisation.
However, what Hafizur told them left the cops thunderstruck. "The goods [stuffed in the boxes] are arms and ammunition and all agencies of the government are aware of the arms.”
Moments into the revelation, Hafizur furiously said, "Leave this place immediately; or you wi 11 be in trouble."
Then he called a person over the mobile phone; addressing him as "sir" and requested him to drive the law enforcers away from the spot.
“Talk to the DG of NSI," Hafizur asked Alauddin. But Alauddin declined and Hafizur got even more furious.
Meanwhile, Hafizur contacted Ulfa leader Paresh Barua over the phone, with the latter assuring him that the government agencies concerned were taking care of the matter.
Hafizur, who had affiliations with Jatiya Party politics two years ago, is a local smuggler.
Abul Hossain threatened Alauddin with dire consequences if he and his colleague did not go away. "Look, all agencies of the government are well aware of the arms and ammunition.
"You will get to know later who I am," shouted Abul, who was in feet Maj M Liakat Hossain, the then deputy director (Technical) of the National Security Intelligence.
Slightly nervous, Alauddin informed the DC port of the matter over the phone. The DC ordered him to make sure that the trucks could not get away.
After sometime, OC Ahadur Rahman of Karnaphuli Police Station reached the jetty with his force. Hafizur and Abul (Liakat) then informed the OC that the arms and ammunition were meant for Ulfa
and that the agencies of the government had knowledge of the matter.
The presence of a huge number of policemen baffled the workers handling the consignment with most of them melting away in the darkness. Sergeant Helal managed to capture five of them.
The DC arrived at the spot around 4:00am with a big contingent of security personnel. Hafiz disappeared suddenly and Alauddin took Abul to speak with DC Baki. Abul was pressurising Baki to get the consignment away.
"Why are you barring us? The NSI DG Brigadier Rahim is aware of the matter," Abul (Liakat) told Baki. He thrust the phone at Baki: "Speak to him [BrigRahim]."
Baki turned down the proposal, which annoyed Abul who then started behaving roughly. Baki asked his officers to take him away. Abul was then taken away from the scene.
The law enforcers seized the weapons, stuffed in more than 1,570 wooden boxes, and started loading them onto the trucks. But the quantity of the arms was so huge that they needed three more trucks.
The operation continued till 10:30am of April 2 and the 10 truckloads of arms caches were taken to a warehouse at Dampara Police Lines in Chittagong.
This is how the biggest ever arms
haul unfolded before the nation.
The arms included submachine guns, semi automatic sporting rifles, tommy guns, rocket launchers, hand grenades and bullets. Military experts were of the view that such weapons are used to wage war against a regular army.
The arms, produced in the Chinese factory Norinco, were brought by ship to a place in the Bay of Bengal on the night of March 29. Hafiz and his men went to the place, 30km southwest off St Martin's Island, with two trawlers. The arms were offloaded onto the trawlers till noon on March 30, before the trawlers sailed off to the CUFL jetty.
Utterly shocked, the nation stood aghast at the haul as never before anyone had thought the country would be used as a route to transit such a huge cache of arms, let alone under ''government protection".
Two cases -- one under the Arms Act for illegal possession of firearms and other under the Special Powers Act-1974 for smuggling illegal firearms-- were filed a day after the seizure with Karnaphuli Police Station.
It took 10 years to complete the trial. Chittagong Metropolitan Special Tribunal-1 is set to deliver the verdict in the sensational cases today.
(Note: The narration is based on the deposition of witnesses and charge sheets of thecases.)