How We Bought RDX

RDX Rs 80 a gram. Comes in packages with ingredients that make it a more potent composition. The ISI and Bangladesh’s intelligence agencies play a major role in pumping it across the border. Consumers: terror groups, Maoists and theLTTE.

AK-56 The cheaper Chinese version of the AK-47. Smuggled in via the Chittagong Hill tracts through Rajshahi and Nawabganj into north Murshidabad. Costs upwards of Rs 1.5 lakh.

Small Arms A wide variety, ranging from Rs 800 for a single shot pistol to more sophisticated Mauser pistols for Rs 1 lakh.

Explosives Locally manufactured explosives come cheap. Much of the crude bombs find their way to Bihar, Jharkhand and other neighbouring states.

***

So there we were on the road from Calcutta to Murshidabad, the trouble-prone border district of West Bengal. Running along India’s border with Bangaladesh, it stretches 123 km and is largely made up of lush green fields fed by the Padma river, where rice and jute grow in abundance. Murshidabad’s legacy is connected more to the 1,000-door palace (Hazaarduari Mahal), reflecting the glory days of the nawabs who ruled this region. Today, though, the district is a constant in the news for its volatile politics and a flourishing arms and drugs trade.

At Behrampur, a nondescript town which serves as the district HQ, we begin enquiries. A local is at hand to help us as we ask around for dealers in arms and explosives. We are taken to a small house in a bylane at Khagra, a small colony tucked away to the north of the town known as the "original Behrampur". Here, a few ordinary looking youth quietly file into a small, dimly-lit room and settle down to business after taking out their "machines" for us to examine. The "machines" in question are Chinese pistols and revolvers, procured by their contacts from across the border. One of the men claims they know the DGFI (Directorate General of Field Intelligence, the Bangladeshi version of Pakistan’s ISI).

Since we are not interested in guns but are looking for RDX, we’re advised to proceed to Shaikhpara where we will be met by Nooruddin (name changed). The next day we head to Jalangi, from where the Indo-Bangla border snakes southward. The topography is dotted with border outposts (BOPS) of the Indian Border Security Force (BSF). Driving past Islampur, we reach Shaikhpara where Nooruddin is waiting. He says getting RDX at such short notice would be impossible. We’ll have to wait another day.

Early next morning, there is a call. It’s Nooruddin. He directs us to Bhaduriapara where he has established contact with "friends" who can get us the RDX. "What do you want to do with it (RDX)?" asks Nooruddin in chaste Bengali as he quietly surveys us. We offer no answer and he doesn’t seem too keen to know our motives. The diminutive Nooruddin, who lost a hand after a bomb he was smuggling exploded, moves on to the next question—do we have the Rs 20,000 in cash for the RDX? When we answer in the affirmative, Noor gets busy on his cellphone. "The deal’s set for 250 grams," he says. But we need to be careful with the RDX. "Don’t mix the powder with the chemicals they give you," he cautions.

We’ve been very lucky, Noor tells us. "It usually takes a lot longer to procure the stuff. If you had given us some more time, we could have slipped across the border in the night and got more (than the quarter kilo) for you by afternoon," he says. We take his word for it. How easy is it to get the RDX? "Not so simple. But you came through a contact I trust," he says. And then Noor repeats the question he’d asked us earlier. "What do you want it for?" Once again, we offer no answer.

Then it’s another 45-minute journey that takes us past through two police circles and finally to a junction just short of Bhaduriapara. We’re asked to wait while Noor goes off alone. After he returns with the RDX and the chemical mix that comes with it, we retire to a field nearby where the actual transfer takes place. We pay Noor his Rs 20,000. "Don’t hang around. Leave immediately and be careful," are Noor’s final words of advice as he rushes off.

Packed in a yellow plastic sheet, the RDX looks like a hard piece of white crystallised material so tightly packed it almost feels like a rock. Numbed, we try to make sense of what has just transpired. For years we have been conditioned to believe that the stuff we are holding, RDX, is what defines terror. Now, at such close proximity, it brings home the horrors of what a few kilos of the stuff could bring to bear on a suburban train or a busy marketplace. This is the instrument of death that has spread terror for well over a decade....

So what makes the arms-drugs trade flourish along the Indo-Bangla border? Very clearly, it’s the poor policing that has contributed to its steady growth. Locals say the BSF is only alert and effective on days when senior officials from Calcutta come calling. Otherwise, for as little as a Rs 80,000 bribe per consignment, the local BSF camp ensures that the smugglers are not disturbed.

Earlier, our search for RDX had led us to a small lodge that doubles up as a brothel right in the heart of the market in Jalangi town. Here we had met Shabeena, a sex worker. She is the sop given to low-level BSF functionaries posted at the local BOPS at Toltoli, Singhpara and Khasmahal. Several nights a week, she goes over to the BSF camps or nearby villages just before a deal on a major consignment is struck. "The cartel bringing in the arms gives me Rs 1,200 a night to service 3-4 customers, depending on the amount of material being smuggled," she says.

That some of the BSF jawans are easily compromised was also revealed by Bhushan whom we met at Behrampur. He regularly crosses the border and is an old hand at carting "machines" over from Bangladesh. He tells us he has brought in small consignments from across the border, paying just Rs 50 to the local BSF jawan. "They usually charge Rs 50 per head and rarely check what we carry. If something is caught, it means a higher bribe," he says. Someone with him is quick to offer us an "assault series" (read AK-47 or AK-56) for just over a lakh of rupees. He says he’ll only get it if we are really bonafide buyers. If you have the money, sophisticated weapons are easy to come by in Behrampur.

After years of painstaking intelligence gathering, officials have managed to crack the smugglers’ code when ferrying arms from across the border. "Every time we hear there’s a large consignment of atta (wheat) coming across, we know it’s RDX," a local police official tells us. "At times it comes through Shamsherganj in palm oil tins, and then quickly disappears into Bihar," he adds. Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh, as well as the Chittagong Hill tracts, are some of the areas Indian intelligence have long identified as landing zones for arms from where they are transported into the hinterland.

As we return from Murshidabad, there’s an all-consuming sense of shock and fear in us. The satisfaction of a story done is clouded by all we had seen and experienced. The fact that novices like us could source RDX in three days was not only disconcerting but also indicative of how widespread the terror network is. And how vulnerable the people of India are.

by Saikat Datta and Jaideep Mazumdar in Murshidabad