CM Confirms ISI's Presence in Meghalaya

Shillong, Dec 1 : Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma Tuesday admitted that the Garo Hills region in the state was being used as a corridor by rebel groups and operatives of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for anti-India activities.

'We cannot deny that we have a problem,' he said adding that the movement of these anti-national elements was a serious concern for the government.

The Chief Minister's statement followed a discussion in the assembly in which former Lok Sabha speaker P.A. Sangma said that the region had become a 'hot corridor' of ISI and asked the state government to check the illegal activities.

'The ISI (spies) enter Bangladesh from Pakistan and subsequently enter Garo Hills (bordering Bangladesh) to spread their network in the northeast region,' Sangma told legislators in the assembly during a discussion on the law and order situation.

Meghalaya shares a 443-km border with Bangladesh, part of which is porous, hilly and unfenced and prone to frequent infiltration.

'Fake money printed in Pakistan is brought to Bangladesh and subsequently distributed in the entire region through the Garo Hills corridor,' Sangma said.

He said Bhutan and Nepal have imposed a banned on using of Indian Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination currency notes in their territory to prevent circulation of fake notes.

Apart from Pakistani's spy agency, rebel groups from Assam and Bengal also used Garo Hills as their corridor to criss-cross the India-Bangladesh border, he said.