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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 13, No. 49, June 8, 2015
Data and
assessments from SAIR can be freely published in any form
with credit to the South Asia Intelligence Review of the
South Asia Terrorism Portal
|
Borders
of Terror
Giriraj
Bhattacharjee
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management
M. A. Athul
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management
On June
4, 2015, 18 Army personnel were killed and another 11
were injured when militants ambushed a convoy of 46 troopers
of the 6 Dogra Regiment of the Army, at Moltuk, near the
India-Myanmar border, in the Paralong area of the Chandel
District of Manipur. The militants first targeted the
convoy, which was on a road opening patrol (ROP). Initiating
the attack with an Improvised Explosive Device (IED),
the militants subsequently opened fire using Rocket Propelled
Grenades (RPG) and small arms. The Army also claimed to
have killed a militant in the retaliatory firing.
In terms
of fatalities, this is the worst single attack targeting
Security Forces (SFs) in the entire Northeast region since
1982. On February 19, 1982, a convoy carrying soldiers
was ambushed by Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland
(NSCN) cadres near Namthilok in the Ukhrul District of
Manipur, and 20 troopers and one civilian contractor were
killed. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal
(SATP) database, which has tracked insurgency in the region
since March 2000, the worst attack to precede the June
4, 2015, massacre, was on August 20, 2002, when National
Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT)-Nayanbashi
Jamatiya terrorists killed 20 Tripura State Rifles troopers
and injured another four in an ambush at Hirapur in the
West Tripura District of Tripura.
The June
4 attack was, nevertheless, the worst ever attack in the
India-Myanmar border Districts since March 2000. In another
major attack, on May 24, 2002, at least 11 Assam Rifles
personnel were killed in an ambush by the cadres of the
Isak Muivah faction of NSCN (NSCN-IM)
and the Kuki Revolutionary Army in the Sanakeithel area
under the Litan Police Station of Manipur's Ukhrul District,
though this was far from the border.
Meanwhile,
just about a month earlier, on May 3, 2015, twin
ambushes by militants resulted in
the death of eight SF personnel - seven of them from the
‘C’ company of 23 Assam Rifles (AR) and another from the
164 Naga Territorial Army (TA) Battalion – were engineered
by the NSCN’s Khaplang faction (NSCN-K)
about three kilometres from Changlangshu village in the
Tobu Subdivision, near the India-Myanmar border, in the
Mon District of Nagaland. Another nine troopers were injured
in the incident.
On April
2, 2015, three Army personnel of 4 Rajput Regiment were
killed and another four injured when militants ambushed
their vehicle at Tupi village, near the India-Myanmar
border in the Tirap District of Arunachal Pradesh.
On February
6, 2015, two civilian porters were killed and nine AR
troopers were injured in an IED blast at Monmao village,
near the India-Myanmar border, in the Changlang District
of Arunachal Pradesh. One of the injured AR trooper succumbed
to his injuries a day later.
According
to partial data compiled by the Institute for Conflict
Management, between January 1, 2000 and June, 7 2015,
there were at least 642 fatalities, including 116 civilians,
118 SF personnel and 408 militants, in 10 Districts, spread
across four Northeast Indian States, along the India-Myanmar
border. In terms of such fatalities, Chandel District
is the worst affected, accounting for 295 fatalities (52
civilians, 57 SF personnel and 186 militants), followed
by Churachandpur with 235 fatalities (60 civilians, 38
SF personnel and 137militants); Ukhrul, with 154 fatalities
(39 civilians, 39 SF personnel and 77 militants). The
other border Districts which witnessed fatalities include
Mon (119), Tirap (72), Tuensang (44), Phek (32), Changlang
(22), and Khipre and Longding, two each. There are 15
Districts along the India-Myanmar border in the region,
including Phek, Tuensang, Mon and Khipre Districts in
Nagaland; Tirap, Changlang, Anjaw and Longding in Arunachal
Pradesh; Chandel, Ukhrul and Churachandpur Districts in
Manipur; and Champhai, Serchhip, Lunglei and Chhimtuipui
in Mizoram. Champhai, Serchhip, Lunglei, Anjaw and Chhimtuipui
have not recorded any such fatality so far.
Meanwhile,
the June 4 attack was claimed by the NSCN-K, Kanglei Yawol
Kanna Lup (KYKL)
and Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP).
In a joint statement released on the day of the attack,
these groups stated that the “combined team of Elite Strike
Unit of Naga Army [NSCN-K], KYKL and KCP carried out the
attack. The joint offensive has been launched in sync
with each corresponding assertion for self-determination
and sovereignty." According to some other reports,
the 'commander-in-chief' of the Independent faction of
the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA-I),
Paresh Baruah, referring to the attack, called up local
television channels saying that the ambush was carried
out under orders from S.S. Khaplang, ‘chairman’ of the
recently formed United Liberation Front of Western South
East Asia (UNLF-WSEA).
NSCN-K
had also claimed the May 3 and February 6 attacks. The
April 2 attack remains unattributed, though NSCN-K is
suspected to have been involved.
The June
4 incident was at least the third attack targeting SFs
and involving NSCN-K, since March 27, 2015, when this
rebel group unilaterally
walked out of the 14 year-old ceasefire
process.
Meanwhile,
reports indicate that, after the ceasefire collapsed,
about 400 cadres of NSCN-K have shifted base to Myanmar.
Reports had earlier claimed that an estimated 2,000 militants
from various groups operating in India’s Northeast were
stationed across the frontier in Myanmar. These militants
mainly belonged to NSCN-K, ULFA-I, Kamatapur Liberation
Organization (KLO),
People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK),
People’s Liberation Army (PLA),
United National Liberation Front (UNLF)
and the IK Songbijit faction of National Democratic Front
of Bodoland (NDFB-IKS).
Indeed, reports indicated that Paresh Baruah was located
in the Sagaing Division of Myanmar after he fled Bangladesh,
subsequent to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s assumption
of power in Bangladesh in 2009. A recent report that an
ailing Khaplang was airlifted to Yangon deepened suspicions
of official support to these groups. However, Union Minister
of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju, asserted that
the Myanmar and Bangladesh Government “do not have proper
control in their territories, where the militant groups
have set up their base camps”. It is useful to note that
despite the best effort of Sheikh Hasina Wajed Government
in Bangladesh, at least 57 hideouts of these militant
outfits still remain intact inside Bangladeshi territory.
The formation
of UNLF-WSEA on April 17, 2015, bringing NSCN-K, ULFA-I,
KLO and NDFB-IKS under a single banner, can only add to
current concerns. Some reports suggest that another five
groups, KCP, KYKL, PREPAK, PLA and UNLF, have also joined
this new umbrella organisation. It is significant that
efforts to unify the fragmented insurgencies of the Northeast
date back many years, and the first reference of the newly-floated
common platform can be traced back to a statement by Paresh
Baruah on December 15, 2013, that, “More than 90 per cent
of the work of forming the common platform has been completed
and only the name of the platform has to be declared.
We are hopeful of announcing the common platform shortly.
Though the name of the platform is yet to be announced,
the words ‘west-south east Asia’ would be included in
the name.”
A similar
grouping of six militant outfits - KCP, KYKL, PREPAK,
Progressive faction of PREPAK (PREPAK-PRO), PLA and UNLF
– called; CorCom (Coordination Committee) has been operational
in Manipur since its formation on July 8, 2011. CorCom
as a group has been involved in at least 26 killings –
three civilians, 16 SF personnel and seven militants –
since its formation.
While the
Sheikh Hasina Government’s direct and open support in
Bangladesh has helped India bring relative peace to the
Northeast, the challenge of sustaining the gains
of last few years has grown recently
because of the clustering of all surviving Northeast militant
formations in Myanmar and the support they receive from
non-state groups there, as well as the possibility of
some support from official quarters.
India’s
management of its borders has been consistently unsatisfactory,
though circumstances and fortune have aided it in imposing
a measure of rationality and control in some regions.
The Indo-Myanmar border, unfortunately is not among these.
Despite a boundary agreement dating back to 1967, which
clearly delimited the borders, no physical demarcation
has yet been established. As with other boundaries in
the region, the border cuts through communities, families,
villages, and even homes, and past attempts to fence certain
sections have met with mass protests on both sides. A
Free Movement Regime (FMR) allows resident tribals along
the border to move up to 16 kilometres across the boundary
without restrictions, and tribals are permitted to carry
headloads across the border. These laws, intended to facilitate
the natural interface of local communities, have been
abused consistently by insurgents and smugglers, transforming
this border into one of the major loci of drugs, weapons
and human trafficking. The problem has been compounded
significantly as a result of a tradition of diplomatic
neglect which has left many rankling sores in the relation
between Naypyidaw and New Delhi. While joint operations
long in the past had secured some excellent results, more
recently, Myanmarese authorities tend to look the other
way as far as Indian insurgent group activities on their
soil are concerned. An operation was purportedly launched
by the Myanmar Army against Indian militant groups in
March 2013, but the rebels were given ample warning, and
nothing but the shells of their camps were located and
destroyed. The diplomatic failure in this is incomprehensible,
as Naypyidaw is far from hostile to India. Further, Myanmarese
authorities exercise dubious control over some of the
border regions. Despite a ‘nationwide ceasefire agreement’
between the Government and 16 armed groups, armed clashes
continue between Government Forces and the Kachin Independence
Army (KIA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army
(MNDAA), the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and
the Arakan Army, creating wide areas of disorder along
the border.
Worse,
India’s approach to its own borders remains primitive,
relying overwhelmingly on rudimentary and severely undermanned
patrolling. On the Myanmar border, this occurs deep inside
Indian Territory, leaving vast, unfenced spaces in dense
forests entirely uncovered. In Manipur, roughly 46 battalions
of the Assam Rifles are charged with both Counter Insurgency
(CI) and border management – and less than 15 battalions
are dedicated to the latter task along a topographically
challenging 1,624 kilometer border. The policy framework
has never ventured beyond crude Force management, and
the development of local Forces and intelligence networks
has been grossly neglected. There is little intelligence
penetration and surveillance, and no directive to the
overmanned local Police to monitor activities, beyond
standard and deeply compromised crime control measures.
According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data
for 2013, Manipur has the highest Police Population Ratio,
at 1,020 policemen per 100,000 population, as compared
to an all India average of just 141. Virtually no attention
has been directed to the demographic, social, political
and administrative management of borders and the development
of a permanent and intensive intelligence network.
The Army
is now mounting a retaliatory operation against the perpetrator
groups of the June 4 massacre. Crucially, the focus needs
to be on a narrowly targeted intelligence based operation.
Very recently such a targeted operation in Assam yielded
good results in the aftermath of the December 2014 massacre
of Adivasis, when the Army launched
a major crackdown against NDFB-IKS. After suffering major
losses, the NDFB-IKS, the most
violent group in Assam, has not carried
out a single attack since the launch of the operation.
It is, consequently, necessary to initiate sustained operations
in Manipur, and carry these to a logical end. Unfortunately,
in the past, such operations have invariably been suspended
well before the capacities of the rebel groups have been
destroyed, resulting in repeated cycles of resurgence.
Insurgents
in India’s Northeast had several safe havens in the neighbourhood
in the past; they now have sanctuary only in Myanmar.
The Government there is not unfriendly – though there
is a burden of resentments and grievances as a result
of past diplomatic failures. Joint operations between
Indian and Myanmarese Forces, launched in good faith,
would benefit both India and Myanmar – bringing far greater
order to both sides of their poorly governed border areas.
This is the task to which the Indian policy establishment
must urgently commit itself.
|
Balochistan:
Sanguinary Faultlines
Ambreen
Agha
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management
In another
act of targeting settlers from outside Balochistan, Baloch
insurgents shot dead 22 Pashtuns on May 29, 2015, all
of them daily wagers and labourers, who were travelling
in two passenger buses en route to Karachi (Sindh)
from Pishin District (Balochistan), in the Khad Kucha
area of Mastung District. At least 15 to 20 militants,
wearing Security Forces’ (SF) uniforms, came in three
pickup trucks and abducted some 35 passengers. The militants
subsequently killed 22, and set free another five. The
fate of the remaining eight is unknown.
Lamenting
the Mastung carnage, Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) Chairperson
Aftab Ahmad Sherpao expressed his anxiety over ethnic
violence and observed that the miscreants wanted to create
ethnic chaos in the Province, as they killed 22 Pashtuns,
and let the non-Pashtun cleaners off the buses after checking
their identity cards.
The United
Baloch Army (UBA), a Baloch separatist group, claimed
responsibility for the killings. Mureed Baloch, UBA 'spokesman',
declared on May 30, “It is a revenge for killing of militants
in Mastung and Kalat areas by Security Forces.”
On May
17, 2015, SFs had killed at least 20 militants, including
nine 'commanders', during an operation in Kalat District.
In another such operation on March 29, 2015, SFs had killed
five militants and injured another six in Mastung District.
Meanwhile,
in retaliations to the May 29 attack, the Frontier Corps
(FC) claimed to have killed 16 alleged UBA militants during
two different search operations. At least seven UBA militants
were killed on May 30, in the same area where the 22 Pashtuns
had been killed. Again, on June 1, at least nine UBA militants
were killed in the Morgan Harboi area of Kalat District.
Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti confirmed
the retaliatory action that killed the militants, adding
that around 500 personnel of FC, Police and Levies Force
took part in the operation. Four helicopters provided
by the Federal Government were also deployed during the
operation.
In a similar
act of ethnic carnage, on April 10,
2015, militants of the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF),
another Baloch separatist outfit, shot dead at least 20
Punjabi and Sindhi construction labourers at their camp
in the Gagdan area of Turbat District. Out of the 20 deceased
labourers, 16 were Punjabis, and four were from the Hyderabad
District in Sindh. A senior administration official, Akbar
Hussain Durrani, disclosed that the militants had lined
the labourers up and shot them at point blank range after
confirming their identity. BLF 'spokesman' Goran Baloch
had claimed responsibility for the attack, asserting,
“We will continue our fight against Pakistani occupation
until (the) liberation of Balochistan.”
At that
time as well, FC retaliated by killing at least 13 alleged
BLF militants in a raid on April 13, 2015, including one
key militant 'commander' Hayat Bewas, in the same area.
According
to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism
Portal (SATP), a total of 181 ‘outsiders’ have been
killed in Balochistan since the killing of Nawab Akbar
Bugti, leader of the Bugti tribe and President of the
Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP), on August 26, 2006, in a military
operation in the Chalgri area of the Bhamboor Hills in
Dera Bugti District. The killings of settlers started
only after the Bugti killing, when Baloch militant organizations
such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), BLF and Baloch
Republican Army (BRA), among others, began to voice anti-Punjabi
sentiments. Akbar Bugti’s killing led to a series of attacks
on Punjabi and other non-Baloch settlers in Balochistan,
as well as to massive destruction of national infrastructure.
While most
of the 181 ‘outsiders’ killed were from Punjab,
other ethnic groups, including Urdu-speaking people from
Karachi and Hindko-speaking settlers from Haripur District
in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), have also been singled out
in acts of ethnic violence. A media report published on
June 28, 2011, had noted, “Almost all non-Baloch are on
their hit-list.” According to the SATP database, however,
the May 29, 2015, attack was the first against Pashtun
settlers. Nevertheless, apprehensions regarding ethnic
imbalances and consequent tensions had been raised way
back in 1993, when Tahir Amin, Director, National Institute
of Pakistan Studies (NIPS), had observed,
Today
with a large number of Afghan refugees not having
gone back, the demographic profile in Balochistan
has changed. If the refugees decide to stay permanently,
the traditional ethnic balance between the Baloch
and Pashtun population will shift in favour of Pashtuns.
|
The latest
attack on Pashtun settlers is claimed as retaliation by
the Baloch people against the Pakistani establishment’s
deliberate attempt to ignore the genuine grievances of
the Baloch people, which include the outsourcing of labour
from other Provinces, deliberately keeping the local Baloch
away from development work in the Province and depriving
them of their own resources.
While Baloch
separatist depredations escalate, there is no let up in
Islamabad’s continued policy of engineering ‘disappearances’
and carrying out extrajudicial
killings in the name of neutralizing
the militant threat. Indeed, Abdul Qadeer Baloch, also
known as Mama Qadeer, leader of the Voice for Baloch Missing
Persons (VBMP) referring to the FC claim of having killed
at least 13 BLF militants in a raid on April 13, 2015,
following the April 10 attack, asserted that five of the
13 suspects killed had been missing for some time. The
claim left the incident shrouded in controversy. As SAIR
has noted repeatedly in the past, extrajudicial killings
by state agencies have become a recurring problem in the
Province.
Of the
3,418 civilian fatalities recorded in Balochistan since
2004 [data till June 7, 2015], at least 859 civilian killings
are attributable to one or other militant outfit. Of these,
347 civilian killings (202 in the South and 145 in the
North) have been claimed by Baloch separatist formations
while the Islamist and sectarian extremist formations,
primarily Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ),
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
and Ahrar-ul-Hind (Liberators of India), claimed responsibility
for another 512 civilian killings, 506 in the North (mostly
in and around Quetta) and six in the South. The remaining
2,559 civilian fatalities - 1,547 in the South and 1,012
in the North - remain ‘unattributed’. A large proportion
of the ‘unattributed’ fatalities, particularly in the
Southern region, are believed to be the result of enforced
disappearances carried out by security and intelligence
agencies, particularly including the FC and the Inter
Services Intelligence (ISI), or by their proxies, prominently
including the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Aman Balochistan (TNAB,
Movement for the Restoration of Peace, Balochistan). The
large number of unattributed civilian fatalities strengthens
the widespread conviction that the Security Agencies are
busy with “kill and dump” operations against local Baloch
dissidents, a reality that Pakistan’s Supreme Court clearly
recognized
on July 26, 2012, while hearing the case of enforced disappearances
and missing persons.
Significantly,
the May 29, 2015, attack came just two days after the
decision to launch targeted operations in provincial capital
Quetta and the surrounding areas. Balochistan Home Minister
Mir Sarfaraz Bugti, on May 27, announced that the Government
had decided to launch a "grand targeted operation"
to curb terrorism. He said that FC, Police, Levies and
other intelligence and Law Enforcement Agencies would
take part in the operation. "Nobody would be spared,
strict action would be taken against terrorists",
he asserted. This declaration had been preceded by the
revelation by unnamed official sources, that Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif, during his meeting with Army Chief General
Raheel Sharif on April 15, 2015, had decided to expand
the ongoing Operation
Zarb-e-Azb to Balochistan, to
target the Baloch insurgents. The Army had launched Operation
Zarb-e-Azb against the TTP and associated Islamist
terrorist formations in the North Waziristan Agency of
the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on June
15, 2014, in the aftermath of the attack on the Jinnah
International Airport, Karachi, on June 8-9, 2014.
Amidst
disappearances, torture and indiscriminate artillery attacks,
the Baloch stand hardened in their separatist resolve.
As the Government decides to further entrench militarization
by launching its "grand operation", the ethnic
problem in Balochistan is bound to worsen. The butchery
in Mastung suggests that ethnic minorities are now at
risk across the Province. Such proclivities are likely
to intensify with the continuation of Islamabad’s enduring
policy of economic marginalisation, exploitation and deprivation
of the Baloch people, the deepening sense of alienation,
and the wrongs inflicted by the Punjabi-dominated Federal
Government. Numerous ‘packages’ have been announced to
provide relief to the Baloch people, but the only policy
that is implemented on the ground is a continuation of
past strategies of repression by military force and marginalization
through demographic engineering.
|
Weekly Fatalities:
Major Conflicts in South Asia
June 1-7, 2015
|
Civilians
|
Security
Force Personnel
|
Terrorists/Insurgents
|
Total
|
INDIA
|
|
Jammu and
Kashmir
|
1
|
0
|
3
|
4
|
Manipur
|
0
|
18
|
1
|
19
|
Left-wing
Extremism
|
|
Chhattisgarh
|
0
|
0
|
3
|
3
|
Odisha
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
Total (INDIA)
|
1
|
19
|
7
|
27
|
PAKISTAN
|
|
Balochistan
|
5
|
4
|
23
|
32
|
FATA
|
5
|
1
|
48
|
54
|
Punjab
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
2
|
Sindh
|
7
|
1
|
6
|
14
|
PAKISTAN
(Total)
|
|
|
|
|
Provisional
data compiled from English language media sources.
|
BANGLADESH
ABT
threatens
to
kill
seven
people
including
State
Minister
for
Home
Affairs
Asaduzzaman
Khan
Kamal:
Ansarullah
Bangla
Team
(ABT)
in
a
letter
threatened
to
kill
seven
people,
including
State
Minister
for
Home
Affairs
Asaduzzaman
Khan
Kamal.
Apart
from
the
State
Minister
for
Home
Affairs,
Abu
Mohamad
Delwar
Hossain,
Abu
Musa
M
Masuduzzaman
Zakaria,
Dr
AK
Azad
Chowdhury,
Shomi
Kaiser,
Dr
Mohamad
Akhtaruzzaman
and
Dhaka
University
(DU)
proctor
Prof
AM
Amzad
received
the
death
threats.
News
Bangladesh,
June
2,
2015.
INDIA
18
Army
men
killed
in
ambush
in
Manipur:
On
June
4,
militants
ambushed
a
convoy
of
6
Dogra
Regiment
of
the
Indian
Army
killing
at
least
18
Army
personnel
and
injuring
another
11
at
a
place
between
Paralong
and
Charong
villages
in
Chandel
District.
The
militants
used
Rocket
Propelled
Grenades
(RPGs),
Improvised
Explosive
Device
(IED)
and
automatic
weapons
in
the
attack.
The
Shillong
Times,
June
5,
2015.
Dawood
Ibrahim
shifted
somewhere
near
Afghanistan-Pakistan
border,
says
report:
Latest
intelligence
inputs
suggest
that
Dawood
Ibrahim
was
shifted
somewhere
near
the
Afghanistan-Pakistan
border
about
a
fortnight
ago.
"He
was
in
the
port
city
of
Karachi
about
15
days
ago,
but
has
since
been
shifted
to
the
Af-Pak
region.
There
are
at
least
five-six
locations
that
we
have
identified,
where
he
is
shifted
on
a
regular
basis
with
the
help
of
Pakistan
authorities.
He
is
never
kept
at
one
location
for
more
than
a
month,"
said
an
unnamed
Union
Ministry
of
Home
Affairs
(UMHA)
official.
He
added
that
Dawood
also
travelled
frequently
outside
Pakistan,
especially
to
Central
Asian
countries.
Indian Express,
June
5,
2015.
Maharashtra
Government
sets
up
'Unified
Command'
to
tackle
Maoist
issues:
The
Home
Department
of
Maharashtra
Government
in
an
effort
to
tackle
the
challenge
posed
by
the
Communist
Party
of
India
(CPI-Maoist)
has
set
up
a
'unified
command'
under
Chief
Minister
Devendra
Fadnavis,
which
includes
officials
from
the
state
Police
and
intelligence,
comprising
central
intelligence,
and
defence.
The
command
will
also
have
officials
from
department
such
as
forest,
Finance,
public
works
and
planning.
Hindustan
Times,
June
3,
2015.
NEPAL
NC
and
CPN-UML
'to
accept'
60-40
poll
model
if
federalism
row
is
sorted:
The
ruling
Nepali
Congress
(NC)
and
Communist
Party
of
Nepal-Unified
Marxist
Leninist
(CPN-UML)
said
that
they
would
accept
Unified
Communist
Party
of
Nepal-Maoist
(UCPN-M)
proposal
of
a
mixed
model
electoral
system-60
percent
direct
and
40
percent
proportional-provided
they
reach
consensus
on
federalism.
During
a
four-party
meeting
on
June
2,
the
UCPN-M
proposed
to
elect
40
percent
representatives
through
the
proportional
system
and
the
rest
under
the
first-past-the-post.
Kantipur Online,
June
3,
2015.
PAKISTAN
Sindh
Government
to
initiate
crackdown
of
48
madrassas
involved
in
suspicious
activities:
Sindh
Information
Minister
Sharjeel
Inam
Memon
on
June
4
said
that
48
madrassas
(seminaries)
have
been
found
involved
in
'suspicious
activities'.
He
said
that
the
meeting
of
the
Apex
Committee
held
under
the
chairmanship
of
Sindh
Chief
Minister
Qaim
Ali
Shah
in
Karachi
decided
to
initiate
a
crackdown
on
48
seminaries
which
have
been
found
to
be
promoting
terrorism
in
the
country
in
general
and
in
the
province
in
particular.
The News,
June
5,
2015.
SRI
LANKA
New
Tamil
political
alliance
formed
in
Sri
Lanka:
A
new
Tamil
political
formation,
Tamil
Progressive
Alliance
(TPA),
was
formally
launched
on
June
3
to
highlight
issues
and
problems
of
Indian
Tamils
in
Sri
Lanka.
The
TPA
comprises
Democratic
People's
Front
(DPF)
of
Mano
Ganesan,
Up
Country
People's
Front
(UCPF)
of
V.
S.
Radhakrishnan,
and
the
National
Union
of
Workers
(NUW)
of
Palany
Thigambaram.
The
three
leaders
asserted
that
the
Alliance
was
formed
not
meant
for
the
polls
but
out
of
the
realization
that
a
"unified
and
cohesive
force"
would
ensure
the
accomplishment
of
more
concessions
and
rights
for
the
Indian
Tamils.
Meanwhile,
the
TPA
has
decided
to
support
the
government
party,
United
National
Party
(UNP).
TPA
has
also
decided
to
contest
the
elections
under
the
elephant
symbol
of
the
UNP.
The
Hindu,
June
4,
2015;
Colombo
Page,
June
5,
2015.
The South
Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR) is a weekly service that
brings you regular data, assessments and news briefs on
terrorism, insurgencies and sub-conventional warfare, on
counter-terrorism responses and policies, as well as on
related economic, political, and social issues, in the South
Asian region.
SAIR is a project
of the Institute
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and the
South
Asia Terrorism Portal.
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