DHARMSHALA: Noted journalist Rajya Sabha member Chandan Mitra has said the intelligence agency of Bangladesh, DGFI, was acting as a branch of the ISI. ULFA militants were also finding safe heaven in Bangladesh.

As per rough estimates, there were about 2 crore illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in the country. Security personnel has also probing a possible HuJI-ULFA link to the October 30-serial blasts in Assam arrested over 20 suspects.  He was addressing the national seminar on threat being posed by Bangladeshi immigrants to the security of the country organized at the regional centre of Himachal Pradesh University at Dharmshala in Himachal Pardesh.

In the seminar, experts discussed the threat being posed by Bangladeshi immigrants to the security of the country.Sunil Ambekar, a social activist, said about 3,000 new villages had come up in Assam as per the latest census. Most of these villages were occupied by Bangladeshi immigrants. These illegal immigrants were carrying out ethnic cleansing of local tribals from various areas. The recent riots that claimed lives of many locals in north-eastern states were also a part of a conspiracy. Other experts, including Rajya Sabha member Bal Aptay and HPU vice-chancellor Sunil Gupta stressed the need to take strong steps to check the menace of illegal immigration, especially from Bangladesh.

Meanwhile a controversy created over the function when a section of students alleged that the regional centre authorities used funds meant for self-financing schemes for holding the seminar. They alleged the funds for the self-financing schemes should have been used for improving infrastructure of the centre or for organizing academic seminars. However, the management used the funds for a political seminar, which was illegal.

The students alleged that windowpanes in their hostels were broken and other infrastructure was also in poor shape. Whenever the authorities were asked for repairs, they took the plea that there were no funds available. However, now they were wasting funds on political seminars, they said.

Director of the regional centre Kuldeep Kumar Agnihotri, however, denied the charges. He said seminar was organised by political science and law departments and funds from the NRI-sponsored quota were used for the purpose. No illegality had been committed in the usage of funds, he said.