NEW DELHI: Investigators hunting for the suspects in the firebombing of the Samjhauta Express believe that Lahore resident Sattar Khan may have been linked to Shahid Bilal, said to be having close connections with cadre of the Harkat ul-Jihad Islami (HuJI), a Bangladesh-based terrorist group.

Among other operations, Bilal is alleged to have had overall command of an October 12, 2005 HuJI suicide bombing of the counter-terrorism Special Task Force headquarters in Hyderabad. He is also believed to have had close links with Rasool Khan `Party,' a Gujarat resident, who allegedly played a key role in sending local Lashkar recruits for training in Pakistan through Dhaka.

Evidence that both the Lashkar and the Harkat have developed joint terror rings has been growing. For example, Hyderabad resident Mohammad Ibrahim, who was arrested in December 2006, told his interrogators that several Bangladeshis and Indians had been trained in terror camps southern Balochistan for attacks against India. Similar joint networks played a role in the Varanasi and Mumbai serial bombings.

Intelligence concerns

New Delhi hopes to use the Joint Mechanism on Terrorism, set up in the wake of last year's serial bombings in Mumbai, to push for action against these transnational networks. Given that most victims of the Samjhauta Express attack were Pakistanis and the possibility that it was executed by Islamist terror groups hostile to Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf, several experts have been optimistic of quiet cross-border cooperation in the investigation.

However, critics have noted that the past record of India-Pakistan intelligence has been poor. In a recent article, the former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer B. Raman confirmed reports — first published by The Hindu in 2004 — of secret intelligence liaison meetings authorised by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq in an effort to defuse the tensions caused by Pakistani support for Khalistan terrorists.

The former RAW chief A.K. Verma and the former Inter-Services Intelligence head General Hamid Gul then held two rounds of discussion, brokered by Jordanian crown prince Talal bin-Hassan, whose wife, princess Sarvath, is of Pakistani origin. Although Pakistan handed over four Indian soldiers who defected after Operation Bluestar, no further progress was made in ending ISI support for Khalistan groups.

Efforts were made under the regime of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resume the covert intelligence dialogue. Amid escalating tensions in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as on the Siachen Glacier, Lieutenant-General Asad Durrani, then ISI chief, and RAW spymaster G.S. Bajpai met in Singapore for a third round of secret dialogue. However, there were no concrete results.

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