Book reveals Bengal terror network’s Nagaland link

A hermaphrodite, who escaped to Bangladesh, was running the show for Pakistan’s ISI in Burdwan, ex-DGP Dilip Mitra’s book says

GUWAHATI

A hermaphrodite-run terror module based out of Burdwan in West Bengal more than two decades ago had a link with Nagaland’s commercial centre Dimapur, a book by a former intelligence officer has revealed.

Sheela Khan, a bisexual better known as Queen Bee, ran the module from Lakhipur Math in Burdwan for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) of Bangladesh. She fled to Bangladesh before the security forces could raid her hideout in 2001.

Dimapur was a transit point for the ISI. Consignments of cannabis, explosives and arms would find their way to Burdwan from Dimapur, packed to often escape security checks. Dimapur is known to be a hub of drugs and arms that come in from the adjoining Myanmar.  

One Sale Ao, a Naga based in Dimapur was the contact of Khan and her associate Taher Ali, West Bengal’s former Director-General of Police, Dilip Mitra says in his book, Operation Black Stiletto: Making India Bleed. The 45-chapter book with a diary-like narrative is based on his years in intelligence from 2001 to 2008.

According to Mr. Mitra, the ISI had begun recruiting people in the Burdwan, Asansol and Durgapur belt since November 1996. Inputs he received from a “sister organisation” helped the police neutralise a few “ISI/DGFI networks”, but many remained undetected.

One such is said to have led to the November 2014 blast in Burdwan that killed two suspected Indian Mujahideen members.