CHALLENGES FROM THE EAST

Tariq Lodhi

Recap

2. In the earlier part, we saw how the MJDP was formed and how it drew a generally favourable response — not only from the USA but from Iran and other regional countries as well — who viewed the development as a step towards stability and peace in the region. It was also noted that the Indo-Israeli Intelligence Community Alliance appears to have been extremely agitated by the announcement of the MJDP, and has set in motion every possible overt and covert mechanism to obstruct the MJDP’s consolidation and performance, and to make all-out efforts to discourage any other state from supporting or joining the platform.
3. The entire Indo-Israeli clandestine machinery has begun operating on a 24/7 basis, and is trying to manufacture various narratives and conduct operations described in the Dirty Tricks playbook to achieve its aims. In this part of the discussion, we will attempt to take stock of the various developments that speak of the Indo-Israeli hybrid-warfare assaults against Bangladesh, and of the creation of plausible justifications to pressurise Bangladesh and prevent it from leaning towards China or the MJDP.
4. In this mini-theatre, India has hyper-activated all its proxies, including Fitna al-Khwarij, Fitna al-Hind, the master proxy Afghanistan, and its covert-warfare warriors in Bangladesh. At the same time, it is trying to amplify the supposedly rising threat from China in order to garner Western support. Alongside this, both Indo-Israeli partners are not sparing any opportunity to escalate Islamophobic sentiment across the globe. India, with the help of Israel, continues to rock the strategic boat and to plant landmines along the strategic course for Pakistan, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries. An effort has been made here to highlight only those major areas that India is trying to leverage in order to pressurise Bangladesh and to regain its strangulating strategic hold over it.

Preamble

5. The Indo-Israeli strategic conglomerate had been anticipating emerging Arab or Muslim blocs, which the Israeli PM referred to as an “emerging radical Sunni axis” — a term that later gained some publicity as the Sunni Bloc — in the expectation that it would emerge as an anti-Shia (read: Iran) bloc, and would in fact stand broadly on the same side of the strategic fence as Israel.
6. However, the emergence of the MJDP — which Israel had hoped would be a Sunni Axis, but which was not — disappointed the Indo-Israeli lobbies immensely, as it was neither a sectarian platform nor positioned on the same side of the fence against Iran. Under the heavy weight of this disappointment, the Indo-Israeli partnership is hastening the shaping-up of its own defence, security, intelligence and strategic forum by broadening the Greece–Cyprus–Israel Mediterranean Strategic Alliance, which was announced by the Israeli PM on 22 December 2025. The Israeli PM had further buttressed the Mediterranean, or Trilateral, Strategic Alliance with the vision of creating a “hexagon of alliances around or within the Middle East,” which he announced on 22 February 2026 — only a few days before the Indian PM’s visit to Israel on 25–27 February 2026. Consensus for the overt joint Indo-Israeli alliance is believed to have been one of the major achievements during the undisclosed portion of the talks; curiously, the next day, on 28 February 2026, Israel and the USA were to attack Iran. It adds to the mystery that when Iran launched its missile attacks on Pakistan on 16 January 2024, the Indian FM had visited Iran only a day before. Do these visits before conflicts have some ulterior link to the warfare? It is up to the readers to put two and two together and reach a conclusion. So, the intent to develop a bloc to counter the emerging Islamic bloc was already brewing between India and Israel, and when the MJDP was sprung upon them, they had only one option: to join hands and go flat-out in undermining the MJDP while rapidly consolidating their own intended bloc — and it had to be done on a fast track. There is an old saying associated with the CIA: “If you want something real bad, you get it real bad” — and so is the situation that would develop here.
7. The international media had correctly speculated about the formation of the Makkah Joint Defence Pact (MJDP), comprising Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye, and perhaps extending to include Egypt and other Muslim states. But for the moment, Türkiye and Pakistan stand out as common adversaries for both Israel and India. This provides added reason for the Indo-Israeli partners to move shoulder to shoulder in conspiring against Türkiye and Pakistan.
8. The declaration forming the MJDP on 7 August 2026 in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, struck the Indo-Israeli strategic aspirants in the region like a thunderbolt. This development was a fresh stimulus for the Indo-Israeli covert-warfare community and prompted them to add further vitality to their hybrid-warfare devices, setting in motion their contingency plans to undermine and derail the MJDP before it could consolidate and pose a daunting challenge to their hegemonic designs. The Indo-Israeli HIAs immediately hyped up volatility in Afghanistan, renewed efforts to insulate Bangladesh from the gravitational pull of the MJDP or a swing towards China, and unleashed a hybrid-warfare blitzkrieg against Pakistan.
9. All the domains of hybrid warfare — including Dirty Tricks, and, within them, 5GW, narratives, scripts and False Flag Operations, etc. — have been escalated across the whole region to derive multiple benefits and objectives. Mysterious, unidentified attacks have once again broken out in the Middle East, as vessels and land-based infrastructure are targeted alike, shrouded in deliberate, managed ambiguity. This large, cantankerous hybrid-warfare behemoth, which has been set in motion, has so many dark wheels within wheels driving it towards its sinister goals that it is difficult, even for the most versatile state, to pre-empt comprehensively. The only recourse often left to counter these cloak-and-dagger plots is to fight fire with fire.
10. It is India’s utmost endeavour to somehow develop a conflict-laden, hostile situation between Israel and the MJDP — choosing Türkiye as its starting point — and to manipulate Israel into carrying out compartmentalised, two-front hybrid attacks, beginning with strikes on Turkish interests in Syria. Side by side, and in sync, India appears to be spearheading both damage-control and asset-retrieval operations against Bangladesh. Israel has initiated the anti-Türkiye campaign in order to intimidate Ankara and counter the strategic build-up of the MJDP, and conducted eight precision strikes on 18 August 2026 against the runway of Abu Duhur Air Base in the north-western province of Idlib, which lies some 70 km east of the Turkish border with Syria. Türkiye said it was refurbishing the airfield, while Israel alleged that Türkiye was positioning its military resources there; the USA says the Israeli intelligence on which it based its attacks was wrong — but the deed was done, and Israel had made its point, firing the first armed shot against the MJDP. It is possible that several other regional states may tacitly want such a situation for their own vested interests, as the region slips into what could be called the next round of the Great Game.
11. But for this moment, let us take a second look at the Pakistan-specific conspiracies that are being developed as the first step towards undermining the MJDP. The Indo-Israeli clandestine operations are broadly targeting Pakistan from all sides. If imagined as concentric circles, the innermost circle involves Afghanistan and western India; the middle circle involves the Indian Ocean, Iran and Bangladesh; and the outer circle involves the wider Middle East, West Asia, the CARS and South-East Asia. Interchangeably, and keeping its focus, the Indo-Israeli partnership continues to conduct calibrated hybrid-warfare attacks. Now, let us look at the Indo-Israeli conspiracies and strategies in the middle circle’s major area: Bangladesh.
12. Bangladesh, in my view, came into being as a result of a grossly mishandled Cold War conflict in 1971. Pakistan and its allies had been slow in anticipating the scale of the clandestine operation; India had partnered with the Soviet Union (RAW and the KGB) to conceive and conduct this clandestine warfare to dismember Pakistan, and India had every plan to annex East Pakistan. It is my view, after reviewing several books by credible authors, that Mrs Indira Gandhi was prevented from annexing then-East Pakistan only by strategic and diplomatic intervention by the USA, where it is said that any steps towards annexation would have sparked the Third World War. In any case, the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent, Muslim-majority state remained firmly attached to the Two-Nation Theory and left the Indian dream of annexation unfulfilled. Since then, and to this day, India has used every trick of the trade described in the chronicles of the Arthashastra to reclaim total control over Bangladesh.
13. Ironically, India — which had inherited vast clandestine assets from the Allies and the shrinking Raj in 1947, some by default and the rest by prior understanding to hold their treasures and continue their services — further constructed some of its own doctrines, morphing tactics copied from Western intelligence agencies and those contained in the worthy Arthashastra, and continued to promote and lead the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). With its interim estrangement from the USA in the late sixties, India quickly scuttled to the Soviet Union, and with the Soviet Union’s total ingress into the Indian security domain, it reconstructed its intelligence services and raised the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) in 1968. RAW was to be put to the test immediately, and was to carry India into this first major Cold War combat, to be fought in East Pakistan. Subsequently, after its formation, the nascent Bangladesh was compelled to look towards India as its saviour and midwife — until the Bangla people could no longer tolerate the transactional and avaricious Indian behaviour.
14. To take better stock of the Indo-Israeli strategic conspiracies, and to understand the Indian desire to retrieve Bangladesh from slipping into Chinese influence or developing a favourable position towards the MJDP, we need to keep in view several significant developments that have taken place. These include: Hasina Wajid’s ouster and the packing-up of decades-long Indian hegemonic influence; the disruption of Indo-Israeli plans to weaken the Two-Nation Theory by striking at the Islamic identity, thus eliminating the chances of Bangladesh tilting towards the MJDP; the disruption of Indian efforts to strengthen and reconstruct a Mukti Bahini–type force; the weakening of the comprehensive Indian economic and strategic iron-grip on Bangladesh; the interruption of the manipulation of Rohingyas against the Chinese in Myanmar; the loss of extensive operational freedom for covert operations on Bangladeshi soil, particularly against India’s own domestic dissidents and for the management of terror outfits for cross-border use, in collaboration with Israel to achieve common goals globally; the challenges imposed on India’s Look East policy; the compromise of the sinister measures used to intimidate the USA with engineered defiance that would build anti-USA sentiment and prevent Bangladesh from going over India’s head and making autonomous or conflicting diplomatic inroads with the USA; and the curtailing of commerce, trade imbalances and other similar exploitations, etc. The long list also includes: challenges to India’s ability to use water disputes as a strategic lever to keep Bangladesh under control; the exposure of India’s string-pulling through over-inflated promises of credit lines; and, more lately, the use of Bangladesh and its issues to create diversions and deceptions while conducting clandestine operations elsewhere, etc. For this purpose, the Indo-Israeli HIAs have mobilised all of their political-warfare machinery, including their Dirty Tricks and other hybrid-warfare departments.

Hasina Wajid’s Ouster

15. Hasina Wajid’s unceremonial abdication and escape to India on 5 August 2024 pulled the lynchpin from the engine of Indian hegemony. The fact that the Indian NSA met Hasina Wajid on the tarmac upon her arrival in India, and that she was lodged in a “safe house” belonging to the security establishment rather than in state guesthouses, is a signal that India considers her a strategic asset and is preserving her for future use, rather than treating her as a diplomatic dignitary. Not only has her refuge in India created a perpetual issue between the two countries, it also triggered the flight of a large number of known Indian loyalists from Bangladesh. The resignations of the Chief Justice and several other judges began a scramble by the Bangladesh Awami League (AL) and Indian loyalists to flee the country. A large number of AL-appointed heads of organisations and banks resigned with lightning speed, packed their bags and took the first available flights to foreign destinations. More than half of the police force also disappeared from the streets, fearing reprisal by the public for their atrocities and extrajudicial killings of the AL’s political opponents or critics, and for the illegal confinement of thousands of youths and activists. So massive was the exodus that about 50% of police stations across Bangladesh were rendered dysfunctional for this reason in the first few days after Hasina Wajid’s flight. It was whispered that most of these policemen were those whose loyalties lay with the Mukti Bahini, the AL or Indian proxies, and who had been embedded into the security apparatus of Bangladesh. It soon became evident that the large number of people inducted into the administrative services and security outfits through the highly controversial Quota System were allegedly Indian- and AL-trained militants, inducted to capture these organisations by using the cover of Mukti Bahini family members and exploiting their special quotas for these recruitments. It is these cadres who are now being activated to create instability and once again conduct attacks against the nascent new regime. In the face of massive corruption and probable kickback reports for India-managed development contracts — including those at Mongla Port — all were cancelled by the then President, Muhammad Yunus.
16. Hasina Wajid’s flight to India was to become a bone in the Indian throat, as Bangladesh would hinge its future diplomatic relations with India on her extradition to face the courts and their decisions in Bangladesh. Bangladesh would buttress this demand with the demand to also extradite and hand over the suspected assassins of Sharif Osman Hadi, who had fled to India and were detained there. The issue would gain tremendous proportions when India — in esprit de corps with Israel — would manipulate Hasina Wajid into delivering an address in India’s ventriloquial voice on 5 August 2026, announcing her intention to return to Bangladesh by December 2026, which would pour gasoline on the already incensed diplomatic and strategic relations.
17. The address was a calculated warning shot fired by India, tantamount to threatening Bangladesh that if Ms Hasina Wajid were sent back to Bangladesh, the Indian HIAs would mobilise the large numbers of the Bangladesh Awami League (AL), the Bangladesh Juba League (BJL) and the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), who could unleash an agitation resulting in the toppling of the government. The media also amplified this and interpreted it as pressure-building for the safe return of Hasina Wajid, with threats of regime change in the case of non-compliance with the Indian dictum. But it all went wrong.
18. While one understandable reason for this threat was to show India’s reaction to the Bangladesh PM’s visit to China on 24 June 2026 — where he had reaffirmed his participation in the BRI and his recognition of the One China Policy, as he signed several MoUs and a contract for Mongla Port development — India has raised the hype by accusing Bangladesh of allowing the Chinese to work at the Padma Bridge Rail Link and the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Tunnel, which it believes are strategically close to the Siliguri Corridor. India seems to correlate these developments with the Doklam standoff of 18 June 2017. India is also alluding to rising Chinese influence, since China has extended the runway of Cox’s Bazar Airport and made it capable of accommodating larger commercial aircraft, encouraging Bangladesh to develop Cox’s Bazar as a major tourism and communications hub in the region. India has also raised a hue and cry over various Chinese contracts at Mongla Port, alleging that they are a precursor to allowing a Chinese strategic footprint on the coast, which would threaten Indian interests as well as directly dominate India’s triangular, multi-modal connectivity plan for cargo from Sittwe to Chittagong/Teknaf (where the 90-km Teknaf highway leads directly to the Chinese-built Cox’s Bazar Airport) and on to the north-eastern Indian states. On the other hand, propaganda has been unleashed against the Sino-Bangla JV for the Sitakunda–Cox’s Bazar Marine Drive Expressway, which is being equated with several of China’s BRI initiatives elsewhere. Analysts believe that such a situation would set back the Indo-Israeli ambitions of containing China on the one hand, and of expanding influence through the Look East policy on the other. India has been raising the Chinese threat as a plausible justification to attract Western covert support and to regain its position in the strategic matrix. The allegations are not new; India used these allegations during its covert warfare against Pakistan in 1971, when it accused China of training and arming rebels in NEFA in collaboration with Pakistan. The Bangladesh PM had also separately hinted at his interest in engaging with Pakistan for JF-17 multi-role combat aircraft and other defence cooperation.
19. These developments were to trigger a diplomatic flurry and renew Indian diplomatic pressure on Bangladesh. The U.S. Ambassador to India, Sergio Gor (who is also the U.S. Special Envoy for South and Central Asia), visited Bangladesh on a scheduled three-day visit on 30 July 2026, where he met cabinet members and the PM, and also visited the Ukhiya Refugee Camp at Cox’s Bazar, where he spent nearly three hours; separately, he held a 90-minute meeting with the Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka, Dinesh Trivedi, on 31 July 2026. The Indian Ambassador returned to New Delhi soon after, while U.S. Ambassador Sergio Gor returned to New Delhi on 1 August 2026 after completing his diplomatic sojourn. Things would move further towards diplomatic complications when the U.S. Ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, during a visit to Indian-Held Kashmir on 16 August 2026, stated that “Jammu and Kashmir is an important part of India,” which evoked a sharp protest from Pakistan. On the other hand, the Indian mouthpieces were interpreting these remarks as a subtle warning by the USA to Pakistan for rocking the strategic boat. The tone and tenor of this recent flurry also strengthen the view that the Indo-Israeli combination is on its way to raising an Indian-dominated bloc using the narrative of rising Islamic terrorism. Both want to ensure that any possibility of Bangladesh tilting towards the MJDP at some stage is completely stumped.

The Mystery of St. Martin’s Island

20. As the pendulum took a complete swing, India added a classic twist to its earlier narrative. Hasina Wajid now alleges that the USA was conspiring to force Bangladesh to become a Christian country, calling it a “White Man’s Plot.” She lamented that the USA wanted to build an airbase on St. Martin’s Island to monitor the Indian Ocean, Myanmar, China and perhaps India. It is, however, a known fact that it had been India all along that pressured Bangladesh to declare the country secular through a constitutional amendment, and that the sweep in the 2024 elections — ostensibly with covert Indian intervention — was meant to move in this direction. Being located at the edge of Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh, St. Martin’s Island is the gateway to safety for fleeing Rohingyas. The island — also called Narikel Jinjira (Coconut Island) or Daruchini Dwip (Cinnamon Island), a 3-sq-km coral-reef island located 8 km and 9 km from the Myanmar and Bangladesh mainlands respectively — was handed over to Bangladesh only in 1974, and later, in 2012, the final judgement by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) confirmed Bangladesh’s sovereignty over it. Hasina Wajid had earlier focused on St. Martin’s Island during Khaleda Zia’s rule, when she alleged that Khaleda Zia was planning to hand over the island to the USA in order to garner U.S. political support to extend her rule. The USA has been denying any interest in the island whatsoever. Hasina Wajid claimed that the USA was pressurising Bangladesh to allow it to build an air base to counter Chinese influence in the region — and particularly in Myanmar — besides an American interest in changing Bangladesh’s Islamic identity to a Christian one. Ironically, India — not wanting the USA to get hold of this strategic piece of land, which has tremendous strategic value for India, and eyeing the island to develop its own strategic infrastructure against China and Myanmar — had been the primary force to exploit this issue and to manipulate Bangladesh into taking it off the strategic menu for the time being. India believed that American strategic development of this area, besides all other aspects, would bring the USA uncomfortably close to the Indian coast and place all of India under close strategic surveillance. Potentially, an air base on the island could strategically dominate Sittwe Port and India’s planned connectivity corridors, overlook the maritime traffic passing through Malacca, and overview the MCEC in Myanmar. Also, with Myanmar’s Rakhine state only a few kilometres away — where an intense low-intensity conflict between Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) and the Myanmar military continues — the island becomes more significant. With increasing criticism of the Myanmar military, more so due to rising Chinese influence, the island could become another centre of controversy in the coming years.
21. But there is more to St. Martin’s Island. Being strategically located on the border of Myanmar, and only 9 km from Cox’s Bazar — where about a million Rohingyas were camped, at that time under strict Indian and Bangladeshi control — it constituted an ideal launching post for covert attacks against Chinese interests in Myanmar. India, therefore, would have been prepared to go to any length through its proxies placed in Bangladesh to seize control of St. Martin’s Island for its clandestine purposes. Being located close to the port under development at Cox’s Bazar by the Chinese, it is now threatened with being check-mated, and would be faced with an additional Chinese check-post that could conduct surveillance and monitoring.
22. It is quite baffling that while Hasina Wajid had given every priority to India’s security concerns — and had concluded a land swap with India only a few years ago, while her father had given the Tin Bigha corridor to India, only to take it back on a lease that can be cancelled at any time by India, leaving Bangladesh high and dry — this secretiveness about American interest, while the USA remains India’s most important strategic partner, does not add up. However, if the USA did really want this island for its strategic use, then the ambiguity about its demands points towards Indian duplicity: India, with its hands on Bangladesh’s power levers, deliberately chose to avoid the matter, even at the cost of sacrificing its most important resource (read: Bangladesh). In its long-term strategic ambitions, India, with the support of its ally Israel, is therefore going to exert all coercive clandestine means to gain control of the island, and also to ensure that Bangladesh does not connect with the MJDP or take any steps that could bring it closer to Pakistan. India and Israel are well aware that Bangladesh has this potential jewel in the crown, in the form of these coastal islands, that could firmly anchor Bangladesh’s strategic role with the MJDP in future to instil strategic equilibrium in the region.

Undermining Islamic Identity

23. India had been trumpeting and developing narratives, as well as scripts, to demonstrate what the Indian agencies call a rise in Islamic terrorism in Bangladesh. With both India and Israel surviving and thriving on Islamophobic themes, the Indian pursuit of undermining Bangladesh’s continuing Two-Nation Theory and its Islamic identity had reached unprecedented heights during Hasina Wajid’s rule, as India had complete freedom of action in Bangladesh through its own covert agencies. To ensure that it terrorised anti-India elements and crushed any political rebound that could endanger its hegemonic control over Bangladesh, India engineered one of the worst inhuman crackdowns of the previous decades — second only to that of Israel — as the Muslim leadership of Jamaat-e-Islami was tried and executed on charges of collaborating with the Pakistan Army during the Cold War episode of dismembering Pakistan; a wider allegation against which Hasina Wajid’s own father had already granted amnesty. In an effort to completely annihilate the potential leadership that could expose the ugly truth about Indian involvement and barbarianism during 1971, and mobilise Islamic sentiment in Bangladesh, India — through Hasina Wajid — systematically persecuted them from 2009 onward and had them executed.
24. According to media reports, at the March 2025 Raisina Dialogue, India tried to narrow the various discussions towards a perceived rise in Islamic terrorism and Islamic extremist groups trying to establish Islamic caliphates by suppressing minorities. It was during such discussions that U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard made some comments about the treatment of religious minorities in Bangladesh, which ruffled the Bangladesh government, who retorted that the comment was unfounded and based on insufficient knowledge of the actual issue.
25. In sync with the Raisina Dialogue, held in New Delhi on or about 7 March 2025, the RSS raised the pitch of its anti-Muslim rhetoric, declaring that illegal immigration from neighbouring countries threatened Hindu society and that it was paramount that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) be enforced immediately. Various analysts consider the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) Islamophobic, since it intends to target Bengali-speaking Muslims only. The RSS intended to build on this narrative and bring it to a crescendo in October 2025, when it would hold its Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha — the highest annual decision-making forum — to celebrate its centenary and strengthen the Indian establishment’s hand to exert more coercive pressure on Bangladesh. It would be about a year later, in mid-2026, that the RSS would make a volte-face from this coercive stance and hint at opening dialogue with Pakistan — that too with ulterior purposes. Sarkaryavah Dattatreya Hosabale, the powerful Indian political manager from the RSS, visited the UK (10–15 April 2026), the USA (16–26 April 2026) and Germany (28–29 April 2026) to mark the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) centenary year. Later, on 12 May 2026, while speaking in a Press Trust of India video-brief, he expressed hope for the resumption of Indo-Pak diplomatic, commercial, sporting and cultural dialogue and an improvement in relations — something that is apparently being obstinately rejected by the Modi government. Later, another, more direct call by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, at an event on political developments in India, echoed the same message of resuming people-to-people dialogue between Pakistan and India. I do not know the diplomatic and political aspects of this mantra, but I do know that it is a strong diversionary tactic to camouflage the other ulterior activities being conducted by the Indo-Israeli intelligence community against Pakistan, which has recently achieved enviable strategic space in the region and acquired a leading role in the MJDP.
26. India claims that the previous interim Bangladesh government released several terrorists who had been detained during Indo-Bangla coordinated counterterror operations facilitated by the Hasina Wajid government, under what were later considered politically motivated arrests. India claims that it has been keeping an eye on these people and has been regularly warning the Bangladeshi authorities about their adverse subversive activities. On the other hand, Bangladesh has disbanded the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) due to its involvement in human-rights violations and the widespread perception that it was operating under the direct influence of the Indian security services.
27. To drive home these narratives related to Islamic terrorism, India, in our view, is expected to intensify its covert activity in this context, and, with Indo-Israeli collaboration, would not hesitate to engineer or manipulate various clandestine operations from its bag of Dirty Tricks or False Flag Operations.

MJDP, an Accelerator

28. With the emergence of the MJDP, India has once again jump-started its Islamophobic conspiracies and raised the bogey of rocketing Islamic terrorism. Morphing several issues together to give it an inconspicuous diplomatic pretext, Bangladesh had already been subjected to back-to-back diplomatic activity in the first week of August 2026, just before the declaration of the MJDP. Though reciting the mantra of strategic autonomy, India has scrambled all its resources, including an R&AW delegation, to carry out strategic fire-fighting against the effects of the MJDP.
29. RAW’s Chief and Special Secretary at the Special Protection Group, Parag Jain, along with his aides Ashwin Mukund Kotnis, Rahul Negi and Shaibal Roy Chowdhury, arrived in Bangladesh on 9 August 2026, after completing a tour of China. He held closed-door meetings with the PM of Bangladesh and senior security officials. Several analysts speculate that the visit was designed to increase pressure on Bangladesh to extend greater intelligence and security cooperation with India in the name of countering Islamic terrorism, and to revive India’s lost freedom to operate in Bangladesh. According to some media reports, India had been covertly steering Neo-JMB into conducting acts of terrorism, while using these incidents to provide plausibly acceptable evidence of a rise in terrorist activity in Bangladesh, and in this way to build pressure on Bangladesh to seek India’s help against it. India perhaps wants to regain its former leverage inside Bangladesh’s security establishment through this route.
30. Already, during Hasina Wajid’s rule, the then Interior Minister, in December 2016, had revealed that a new faction of JMB — dubbed Neo-JMB — had emerged, which had links with the political opponent Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh; but among the public, this was considered a deliberate effort to malign opposition political parties.
31. At some point, the Neo-Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (Neo-JMB) gained the notoriety of being called Islamic State Bangladesh (ISB), and sometimes Islamic State Bengal Province (ISBP), though it is recognised as a separate terror group that is not part of IS.
32. Soon after the exit of Hasina Wajid, India had been stalking the Chief Adviser of the Interim Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, and at one stage went so far as to threaten him to “watch his words,” as India was perturbed by his hobnobbing with Pakistan and Türkiye. India raised the bogey of a “Greater Bangladesh” vision, which it linked to the presentation of art books to Pakistani and Turkish delegates.

Dirty Tricks

33. There is a never-ending list of the Dirty Tricks churned out by the Indo-Israeli partnership over the last few decades. However, as the low-key pre-MJDP negotiations began to take place, the Indo-Israeli partnership on the one hand accelerated the development of its own strategic platform, and on the other intensified its clandestine subterfuges to derail the upcoming MJDP. The conspiratorial cabal had already set up its board, placing a conglomerate of Dirty Tricks in plain sight. Some of these from the recent past are briefly described here.

Case of Hamraz Worshid Shaikh

34. The Indian authorities in West Bengal, in May 2026, had already concluded a terrorism-financing case without much ado, when one of the alleged influencers, Hamraz Worshid Shaikh — nabbed from Thane, Maharashtra, on or about October 2023 — ostensibly cooperated with the investigating authorities and made confessions. It is believed that he was traced while the authorities were investigating the developing networks of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in India some time in April 2023, and it was alleged that the tentacles of these TTP-driven terrorist networks stretched up to the KSA. He is said to have been radicalised in Saudi Arabia during his stay there in the period 2019–2022. Based on this case, with plenty of insights about recruitment by the Taliban and the TTP, it appears that India has access to “hot” intelligence, freshly baked, from its covert strategic partner Afghanistan, where the TTP is hosted. It also strengthens the general view that a large number of terrorist groups and the Taliban — who are themselves part and an extension of Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan (TTA) — are being managed by the Indian security establishment. Furthermore, Afghanistan, with Indian patronage, has now become India’s reservoir for churning out all sorts of manufactured authenticators and backstops required by the Indo-Israeli covert operators. Of late, Afghanistan has been providing actors for convincing-looking False Flag Operations, used as contingency plans at short notice by the Indo-Israeli secret agencies.

Red Fort Bomb Explosion

35. Another incident dwelling on the Indo-Israeli terror script was to follow in New Delhi on 10 November 2025, near the Red Fort, whose suspect would also reveal that he had been planning the mysterious alleged suicide-bomb attack near the Red Fort since 2023, while the Indian media, driven by its intelligence agencies, would allude to a link between this explosion and Bangladesh as well.

Case of Asaful Mallick

36. But it does not stop here; like layers upon layers of bricks building a structure, a new case appeared as breaking news on the Indian media when, on 11 August 2026, at Bengaluru, one Asaful Mallick was arrested on charges of maintaining links with the TTP against Pakistan’s Army — an offence ostensibly attracting Section 113(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
37. In the Indian environment, such cases are generally prepared and ripened by the intelligence agencies, and the police are used to effect the necessary paperwork for subsequent court proceedings. Like all recent controversial cases claimed by the Indian security agencies — implicating Pakistan, Türkiye, or linking to Saudi Arabia — this case also dwells on claims of virtual terrorist networks built on social-media platforms. According to the police cell-phone and communications forensics, Asaful Mallick was in contact with an Afghan, Imran Haider, belonging to the TTP, ostensibly in Afghanistan. Imran Haider, according to the Indian agencies, was involved in subverting and recruiting Indian youth for cross-border activities.
38. Here comes the innovative part: the Indian agencies are trying to build a narrative in which a hitherto unknown, identified ghost — a cyber-based person using the cyber-identity “Imran Haider,” assumed by the Indian agencies to be in Afghanistan — is engaged in terror-influencing activities including recruitment, financing and training. Imran Haider purports to be a member of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a terrorist group that in Pakistan is well recognised as an Indian proxy, or Fitna al-Khwarij. At this stage, the reason for the TTP extending its tentacles into India — when Indians are undisputedly its mentors and benefactors, and are also in strong relationships with the Taliban regime — appears to be a classic deception, designed to draw global attention and then subsequently shift the narrative to connect the issues more directly with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Afghanistan. The legendary Baniya hidden within the Indian HIAs is concealing its base motive of building a False-Flag-upon-False-Flag Operation, and covering it with screams as if drowning.
39. The Indian media depicts Asaful Mallick as having been completely entangled, having got his passport prepared but being unable to travel due to a paucity of funds, whereupon his handler consoled him and told him to carry out terrorist activities in India itself, the blame for which would automatically fall on Pakistan. There is, however, silence about the issue of the passport and the mandatory scrutiny thereof, nor is there a murmur about the absence of security checks while employing him as a security guard. Are these those strong authenticators specifically included at times to add credibility to the script? According to the police, the suspect was aggrieved by the Pakistan Army’s alleged disrespect of mosques during raids against the TTP, and also because Pakistan had ostensibly aligned itself with Israel against the massacre of the Palestinians. Bringing in Israel has been included to add juice to the story, while also cunningly impressing upon the covert Israeli stakeholders the unfolding of a script in line with Israeli expectations, to be further used for its own independent scripting. Both of these narratives, when seen closely, reek of a resuscitation effort by India to revive collapsed, similar anti-Pakistan narratives from earlier.
40. Peering through the security-intelligence prism, one finds plenty of interesting aspects in the story put forward in the name of leaks and statements from the security forces. One media outlet carried photographs of the suspect dressed in the Afghan Taliban’s usual dress and carrying what appears to be an AK-47. If it is not a doctored or AI-developed photograph, then Asaful Mallick had already sojourned in Afghanistan, or had access to an AK-47. If correct, this contradicts the whole narrative of his failing to travel.
41. These gaping holes — though deliberately left in the story to confuse the public — appear to belong to a hurriedly implemented False Flag Operation, meant to initiate a fresh case and emphasise that the TTP is upscaling and expanding its subterfuges against the Pakistan military, cunningly trying to revive the allegations of the Pakistan military being disrespectful towards mosques, in order to undermine the nascent Makkah Joint Defence Pact (MJDP) and align narratives designed to undermine the Gaza Board of Peace. Considering that one of the media outlets has claimed that the authorities have not yet been able to confirm whether the suspect was a genuine Indian citizen or an immigrant from Bangladesh, this open-ended statement — with its cunning reference to the NRC — speaks volumes and is clearly a subtle threat to Bangladesh. It requires only an obscure statement by one of the security officials that either the suspect’s genuineness has not been proved, or that he belongs to Bangladesh, to get the fireworks going.
42. There is no doubt that, prima facie, this case has been propped up on the basis of cyber-based evidence, which is highly vulnerable to AI and cyber-technology interpolation and easily accessible to the Indian HIAs, and which can be folded into a series of False Flag Operations, as several other operations have been conducted earlier by the Indo-Israeli lobbies.
43. India firmly believes in the quote “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” attributed to Goebbels, and India practises it with a blend of Sir Winston Churchill’s observation that “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” The Indian intelligence community’s penchant for using the cyber-excuse to build cases for propaganda use is unprecedented. Dwelling on non-organic cyber-claims that are near impossible to contest, India has released yet another AI-linked case.

Misinformation About TTP

44. But wait a minute; already, Indian-sponsored media operating under the names of Afghan or Taliban media handles is spreading a narrative that the TTP leader Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud has developed differences with the Taliban regime, since they had ostensibly restricted and confined a number of his commanders, and the Taliban had also harassed their families in Nangarhar. Furthermore, it is claimed that one child died due to a lack of water and the heat in Nangarhar; as such, Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud has decided to migrate from Afghanistan. Some commentators are trying to plant the narrative that he has surreptitiously entered Pakistan. However, considering that there is no verifiable substantiating evidence for any part or the whole of this narrative, the possibility of this deceptive rumour having the objective of covertly hosting him in India — and, through him, conducting terror in Pakistan — cannot be ruled out. After all, India has a long history of hosting its surrogates and assets in India, to provide them sanctuary and a platform for more vigorous operations. India is known to have hosted controversial personalities, including the Dalai Lama in reference to Tibet and his escape from China, Hasina Wajid, Baloch separatist leaders including Naela Quadri Baloch, Balawaristan Movement leaders, several terrorists whose return has often been demanded by Pakistan, and a number of Afghan leaders and members of groups based in Afghanistan, etc.

SBN Case

45. In order to stack up the Dirty Tricks basket for the future launch of False Flag Operations, and to feed various anti-Pakistan and anti-Islam narratives, the Union Home Minister, on 17 August 2026, announced the neutralising of what he called Pakistan’s clandestine network operating in India, which was busted on 12 August 2026, pre-empting plans to disrupt India’s Independence Day celebrations. According to him, 253 persons were arrested from 14 states of India, with 80 FIRs registered under various criminal-activity charges, over-arched by the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Allegedly, the network was being run by one mafioso, Shahzad Bhatti, a Pakistani social-media influencer operating through various platforms, ostensibly from Dubai. India is propagating that Shahzad Bhatti is perhaps an ISI front-man. No organic evidence was mentioned, except that several criminal cases against the network, dating from 2023, were cited. According to the media buttressing this narrative, Shahzad Bhatti was spotted by the Indian intelligence agencies in 2024, when one protégé operator of the Indian intelligence agencies, known as Lawrence Bishnoi, had shared a video-conversation clip on social media in which he could be seen conveying greetings to Shahzad Bhatti. Later, the name of Shahzad Bhatti resurfaced when the brother of Lawrence Bishnoi alleged that Shahzad Bhatti had put out a contract to kill him. India is trying to recycle the Lawrence Bishnoi gang case, which had been busted by the FBI and Five Eyes collaboration in June 2026. The display of these routine criminal cases as acts of terrorism, and their registration under broad-brush acts, is being used to strengthen India’s statistical foundations for the narrative it is trying to resuscitate. These developments are also meant, as a by-product, to influence the ongoing Indo-Bangladesh diplomatic tensions.
46. The ISI was, once again, being blamed for all the ills in the Indian social-media world. The typical use of cyberspace for recruitment, indoctrination, training and even the execution of clandestine operations — a method already widely introduced by the Ukraine conflict, as well as by the Israeli sting and propaganda operations against Palestinians in particular and Muslims in general — is now being applied by the Indo-Israeli cabal against Pakistan and its allies. India, as always, develops a wide propaganda narrative based on fake news and disinformation, which it then uses as the factual-statistical base for further development of its Dirty Tricks operations.

Arresting Minors

47. Against this background, where an anti-ISI perception has already been built, in an apparent Indian-intelligence-developed sting operation, on 19 November 2025, two minors were arrested in Chhattisgarh on charges of having a role in social-media recruitment, radicalisation and motivation of other minors for ISIS, ostensibly as part of an ISI-run network. It is not hard to recognise the message India is sending in order to lend credibility to the Indo-Afghan joint chorus about ISKP having developed bases in Balochistan. India has also repurposed this sting case to further tighten its surveillance of the people, ostensibly for political objectives.

India’s Good JMB, Bad JMB

48. With a general apprehension that the Neo-JMB is an Indian creation and its proxy in Bangladesh — what some analysts would consider a “Good JMB” — the Bangladesh Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) units continue to dismantle terror cells belonging to the Neo-JMB. On 13 August 2026, it was reported in the media that several members of the group had been arrested, and that IEDs — including pipe-bombs, pressure-cooker IEDs and umbrella-concealed IEDs, manufactured indigenously — had been recovered. The pattern of the arrested suspects reveals that during Hasina Wajid’s rule, several of the suspects had been arrested and subsequently released; a practice used to turn criminals around and use them as expendable resources in clandestine operations. The Indo-Israeli intelligence agencies are known to rely heavily on such tactics in their False Flag Operations and Dirty Tricks. As India trumpets the likely rise of Islamic terrorism in Bangladesh, it is anticipated that the Indian intelligence agencies will not hesitate to orchestrate such False Flag incidents, to be attributed to the Neo-JMB, in the near future.

INDO-ISRAELI EFFORTS TO ENFORCE HEGEMONY

Indian Operational Hegemony

49. Piggy-backing on Hasina Wajid’s government, the Indian intelligence agencies had crept into Bangladesh’s body politic, penetrating with their tentacles through every nerve, sinew and node, until the afflicted organisations behaved and moved according to the Indian will. India had obtained complete operational freedom to run its own intelligence services in Bangladesh and to impose their policies — similar to the Indian role in the affairs of the NDS in Afghanistan. These Indian security liaison teams, with token Bangladeshi collaboration, operated as Indian proxies to arrest ULFA’s absconding leader, Arabinda Rajkhowa, on 30 November 2009 from an undisclosed place near Dhaka. Several leaders of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) — including Ranjan Daimary (founder and chairman of the NDFB), B. Sungthagra (a senior NDFB leader) and several others — were also arrested in 2010, in a similar manner, in the name of cooperation and counterterrorism. Due to his refusal to submit to RAW’s directives while on duty in Bangladesh, Lt. Col. (Retd) Hasinur Rehman was removed on trumped-up charges and, as a consequence, was twice confined in the notorious Aynaghar (Room of Mirrors), in 2011 and 2018, during Hasina Wajid’s tenure.
50. According to Lt. Col. (Retd) Hasinur Rehman, a number of senior military officers working directly under Hasina Wajid were following instructions issued by the Indian security services. Allegedly, Major General (Retd.) Tarique Ahmed Siddique, who was Sheikh Hasina’s then security advisor, was responsible for conveying all Indian security-service instructions to lower echelons, including the DGFI and the RAB, which were placed under his direct supervision on behalf of the Bangladesh PM. Through the clandestine support of these protégés, the Indian intelligence agencies installed sophisticated communication-interception equipment in the National Telecommunications Monitoring Centre (NTMC) in 2018, which would provide the Indian intelligence agencies and the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) an unprecedented ingress into Bangladesh’s communication networks. The NTMC commander, former Major General Ziaul Ahsan, was later to be detained on charges of being deeply involved in enforced disappearances, which are believed to have been carried out to target individuals identified by Indian-security-service-driven outfits on Bangladeshi soil.
51. The deep influence of the Indian security establishment over Bangladesh’s security-intelligence community during Hasina Wajid’s tenure resurfaced once again recently, with the exposé of the abduction case of senior BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed. He had been detained at the notorious, Indian-controlled interrogation centre known as Aynaghar, on the directions of the Indian security establishment, and was secretly handed over to them to be interrogated and detained in India.
52. The Aynaghar is a notorious interrogation centre, located in Kachukhet, which existed before the emergence of Bangladesh, where Indian and Burmese agents suspected of spying for India were brought and interrogated. The building was refurbished and extended by Hasina Wajid’s government in 2009 to meet the rising requirements of the Indian intelligence agencies. The Aynaghar (The House of Mirrors) has also been identified as a secret detention centre by the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances while inquiring into enforced-disappearance cases. It was noted that the Aynaghar was under the control of the Task Force for Interrogation (TFI) cell, and was being monitored directly by the then Interior Minister Tarique Ahmed Siddique, then Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, former RAB DGs Benazir Ahmed, M. Khurshid Hossain and Harun Or Rashid, and Lt. Col. (retd) Muhammad Khairul Islam.
53. The role of the Indian intelligence agencies became irrefutable when the Judicial Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances found that the BNP leader and former Communications Minister under Khaleda Zia, Salahuddin Ahmed, was abducted by personnel posing as security officials in the Uttara area of Dhaka and was kept in Aynaghar, from where custody of Salahuddin Ahmed was secretly transferred to the Indian security services in India. The Indian security services later resurfaced him in Shillong, in the Indian state of Meghalaya, after about two months of his disappearance in Bangladesh. In Shillong, as pre-planned, he was again detained on charges of illegally entering India and remained detained until 2018, when the court ordered his release. The release orders were challenged by the Indian state, and although in 2023 the court ordered his release, the Indian secret services continued to keep him under detention — until after Hasina Wajid relinquished her premiership in August 2024, whereafter he was released from detention on 11 August 2024 and returned to Bangladesh.
54. The secret and unlawful transfer of Salahuddin Ahmed to India from Bangladesh, without any judicial process, clearly indicates the underhand covert nexus between the Bangladesh government and the Indian security establishment, and the freedom of operations that India enjoyed — wherein the Indian security establishment enjoyed unfettered access to and control over the major security organs, including the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) and the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), both commanded by military officers. The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances in Bangladesh, in its report captioned “Unfolding the Truth,” has also pointed out the role of India’s RAW, and quoted the instance of Lt. Col. (Retd) Hasinur Rahman — a well-decorated officer — being compelled to work under RAW instructions while holding command positions in the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB). The Commission also observed that Bangladeshi citizens or suspects were informally handed over to the Indian security services, where they were interrogated or suffered other rigours of enforced disappearance, without the lawful process laid down under the constitution. These incidents lend substantive credibility and evidence to RAW’s control over Bangladesh’s internal-security matters during Hasina Wajid’s regime.

Damocles’ Sword

55. India further twisted the arm of Bangladesh when, in 2019, it announced the implementation of the NRC in West Bengal, threatening to repatriate millions of Bengali Muslims settled there since 1971. This was meant to unnerve the Bangladeshi people and make them submit to Indian hegemony. Soon after the January 2024 general elections in Bangladesh, when anti-India agitation broke out, the Indian PM once again threatened Bangladesh by announcing enforcement of the Citizenship Amendment Act, which meant the deportation of thousands — perhaps millions — of Bengali Muslims who had migrated to India after the 1971 war. With frequent “push-ins” of alleged Bangladeshi expatriates into India by the BSF across the Indo-Bangla border, this is often seen as a terse reminder of the NRC, which hangs like a Damocles’ sword over millions of Bengali Muslims in West Bengal and other Indian states.

Enforcing the Look East Policy

56. In the past, under the umbrella of the Look East Policy, the Indian government had been excessively exploiting Bangladesh’s potential for its own benefit. Using the good offices of Hasina Wajid, in July 2018 India ostensibly arranged to disburse huge amounts, in the name of stipends, to more than 300 online accounts in Cox’s Bazar banks, where over a million Rohingya refugees are camped. Ostensibly, these stipends were meant for the former Mukti Bahini, called Freedom Fighters, a large number of whom are known Indian undercover surrogates now conducting clandestine business in the camps. It would be on the occasion of Bangladesh’s celebrations of its 50th Independence Day, on 26 March 2021, that Indian PM Narendra Modi would admit that he too had been associated with the Indian-sponsored covert movement to dismember Pakistan and to support the guerrilla movements precipitated by Mrs Indira Gandhi in collaboration with the KGB in the early seventies, when the Cold War was at its peak. These statements would not go unnoticed by the patriotic Bangladeshi people, who have always been wearied by Indian grandstanding about the role they played — factually, with no love lost for Bengalis.

Mukti Factor

57. In 2018, bitter protests by the Bangladeshi student community erupted against changes to the Quota System for employment. Several protests were attacked by mysterious men armed with sticks and sharp weapons, ostensibly members of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of the AL. The BCL also attacked the protesting teachers and injured several of them. By July 2018, with the protests having gone on for three months, at least 13 vicious attacks by men known to be from the BCL had been reported, injuring more than 68 students.
58. The Quota Protests that had initially begun in 2018 were subsequently temporarily defused as the government accepted some of the demands, but the case was then referred to the High Court, which in 2020 upheld the enhancement of the job quotas. Hasina Wajid’s assertion that the Quota Protests were aimed against the Freedom Fighters and their jobs added fuel to the already ongoing tensions. She was quick to declare the quota protesters anti-liberation and war criminals. This was like adding gasoline to the fire, where an already infuriated public was now sure that the former Mukti Bahini cadres had been absorbed into the BCL and were functioning as the militant arm of the AL, taking their directions from New Delhi to curb all forms of opposition. In between, to resolve the issue, the Supreme Court made some amendments to the High Court’s decision and downscaled the quotas in its decision of 21 July 2024, but the agitational waters had risen far above the head. This further aggravated the street situation, and after several ugly incidents of violence, resulted in the abdication of rule by Hasina Wajid on 5 August 2024. By the time Hasina Wajid was forced to quit, the death toll was touching a grim figure of around 1,500; and the Bangladeshi public held India equally responsible for these killings, through its covert agents operating freely in Bangladesh to curb the protests for the longevity of Hasina Wajid’s rule.

Rohingya Issue

59. According to Bangla media sources, there are more than eleven (11) terrorist-cum-criminal groups operating from the Rohingya refugee camps. These groups are spread across the 33 refugee camps located in Ukhiya and Teknaf, both sub-districts of Cox’s Bazar, where more than 1.4 million Rohingya refugees are camped. As per the Bangladesh authorities, an average of 10 refugees continue to be added every day, as they cross into Bangladesh either fleeing the situation in Myanmar or seeking medical care. The Indian security agencies are suspected of being involved in engineering the recruitment and training of Myanmar, or Burmese, fighters for pro-Indian segments within the Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) operating in Myanmar, while also enlarging Indian penetration into the Arakan Army (AA), with the intent to hijack it and create turned-around factions for use against Chinese interests in Myanmar. Already, ARSA had built up its strength since 2016 and gained experience in guerrilla tactics against the Myanmar security agencies. Ostensibly, with Indian patronage, its leadership was moved to the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, where they began to seize control of the camps and had several confrontations with the Bangladesh authorities, leading to the deaths of several. However, by 2020–21, due perhaps to Myanmar’s divisive strategies, ARSA splintered and lost its earlier tempo. India, in the meantime, would continue to burden Bangladesh by expelling thousands of settled Rohingyas from India into Bangladesh. The regime change in Bangladesh in August 2024 forced the Indian intelligence agencies to place the Rohingya-based clandestine operations on hold and search for alternative strategies to retrieve control.
60. By mid-August 2026, after the formation of the MJDP and the Indian diplomatic choreography, an unexpected relief came Bangladesh’s way, as the Myanmar Tatmadaw confirmed that, out of the 828,824 refugees whose records had been shared with Myanmar for verification, at least 426,545 records had been scrutinised; and among these, 308,797 were found to be former residents of Rakhine. The antecedents of 113,507 persons could not be verified, while 4,241 were found to have been involved in terrorism. Myanmar had earlier, in 2017, declined to recognise the Rohingya as nationals of Myanmar, and accused them of being immigrants from Bangladesh.

Undermining USA Interests

61. India, overtly, had partnered with the USA in Afghanistan as a trusted ally and strategic partner, and behaved as if it were the USA’s watchman for the South Pacific. But underhand, India cunningly and tacitly manipulated its protégé Hasina Wajid to resist allowing the USA to develop St. Martin’s Island, where, in a disclosure she made shortly before her ouster, she said the USA had wanted to build an airstrip.
62. Using Hasina Wajid ruthlessly in pursuit of its own strategic interests, India was prepared to burn down the house to kill a mouse, as it persuaded her to press on with declaring Bangladesh a secular state by making changes to the constitution. This needed a brutal parliamentary majority — a promise that was to be helped along in its delivery by Indian covert political support. India, which has extensive experience in political warfare, was also working overtime to make this final covert coup successful, and had mobilised all its covert resources in this context. As a softening measure, and to garner Western support, India had already successfully planted reports that Hasina Wajid wanted to create Bangladesh as a Christian country. The Indian 5GW brigades, who work in close coordination with the Israeli 5GW organs, unleashed a no-holds-barred campaign to clinch the elections, perhaps to the extent of overkill. On the other hand, Hasina Wajid was obliged to keep all clandestine business conducted for India a secret. Obviously, the complete extent of Indian covert help and strategies for her political campaigning was also kept under heavy wraps of secrecy. As she entered her re-election in the 7 January 2024 general elections for her fourth term with this Indian covert baggage, not without Indian expectations, her Awami League secured 285 seats — including 62 seats on which she had planted her loyalists as independents — in a house of 300. But this was the last straw on the sagging Bangladeshi political back, and the whole plan for the necessary constitutional amendments and other major changes came crashing down, as public fury swiftly transformed into intense agitation, forcing her to abdicate her position and flee. The abandoned, ugly Indian clandestine interference and political warfare lay exposed. These exposures were no different from the exhibition of India’s dirty linen from its covert-activities cupboard in Canada. It is not only in Bangladesh that the footprints of Indian covert interference had become visible all over again; India has been doing so in Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Afghanistan as well. India has also attempted it several times in Pakistan, but its efforts have been foiled one way or another. The emergence of the MJDP had jump-started the laying-down of the new chessboard for the next round of the Great Game, rendering the earlier Indo-Israeli schemes infructuous.

China Factor

63. Through its diplomatic choreography, to highlight and underscore the rising Chinese influence and to project itself as a bulwark against it, India is alluding to Cox’s Bazar Airport as a strategic development that would provide China a firm foothold on the coast. Another significant aspect connected to Cox’s Bazar is the Rohingya refugee camps in its vicinity, which provide recruiting grounds for various militants operating against Myanmar, where the Chinese CMEC — an extension of the BRI, similar to CPEC — is in progress. This would further contribute to the crumbling of the Indo-Israeli clandestine networks in the refugee camps. The earlier visit of the Bangladesh PM to China, and the conclusion of several agreements, was no solace either. By fortifying Cox’s Bazar with a Chinese presence, Bangladesh is also smashing the Indian dream of securing a “Bangladesh Corridor” to connect its state of Tripura with the Bay of Bengal across a roughly 30-km broken-ground strip of Bangladesh’s Feni/Sonagazi coastal sector, between the Indian north-eastern state of Tripura and the Bay of Bengal coast. Such a corridor would have immensely helped India in securing its influence over St. Martin’s Island, located further down towards Teknaf, where it was developing its clandestine foothold on the basis of working with the Rohingya refugees.
64. India has been screaming hoarse that the Chinese will be placed too close to the Indian border for India’s comfort, and could threaten the Siliguri Corridor. Using this as justification, India quickly increased the number of check-posts along the Indo-Bangla border in the vicinity of the Siliguri Corridor to “strengthen” its borders and check the threat being precipitated by the Chinese-, Pakistan- and Bangladesh-related developments. With its obsession over China’s expanding influence in its neighbourhood, India is playing this flamed-out card all over again in order to develop narratives for future use in undermining Bangladesh’s affinity towards the MJDP. Bangladeshi State Minister for Foreign Affairs Humaiun Kobir threw a bee into India’s strategic bonnet when, in an interview with the media on 20 August 2026, he commented: “Bangladesh maintains a positive approach towards the possibility of joining an economic or defence framework involving Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye, taking into account its own interests and the changing dynamics of the global economy and trade” — as Bangladesh continued to insist on the extradition of the former PM and the two assassination suspects from India, before it would consider attending the BRICS and Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) meeting scheduled for 12 September 2026. In such circumstances, the Indo-Israeli security communities are left with very little choice other than to initiate contingency plans and launch False Flag Operations to add kinetics to the diplomatic pressures.

Soaring Public Mistrust

65. The Indian-driven atrocities under Hasina Wajid’s rule continue to be a gaping wound, as the Bangladesh government tries to expedite the healing process through the constitution of transparent commissions and inquiries to mitigate public grievances.
66. Border crossings and people-to-people contact have been significantly affected by recent developments, as a growing distance opens up between the two communities. The BSF, to exert coercive pressure, frequently carries out inhuman push-ins of persons from the Indian side without the protocols set for deportations. There have been instances where India has pushed in its own citizens under the garb of being Bangladeshi, for obvious covert purposes. These have now become indicators of public contempt for Indian tactics. Occasionally, as these incidents increase, there are reactive boycotts of Indian products in several areas. This deteriorating Indian influence has led India to resort to coercive measures, using its political-warfare tactics. This has resulted in a rise in whispering campaigns disclosing Indian covert attempts at regime change.
67. Though there are monumental public grievances directly linked to Indian hegemony, those related to the sharing of water resources were the most ruthlessly exploited by India. As the Bangladesh government has, with significant speed, addressed these issues, it has become a nemesis to the Indian strangulating hold over the waters that are rightfully Bangladesh’s share.

Ganga Water Sharing Treaty

68. With the approaching expiry of the Ganga Water Sharing Treaty of 1996 in December 2026, the question of the Farakka Barrage and water-management issues would rebound between India and Bangladesh. There are increasing public calls to make the agreement more transparent, to reinstate the 1977 treaty’s clause of guarantee or safeguards, and to add a clause for a mandatory right to information. In the face of rising anti-India sentiment across Bangladesh — where the number of travellers from Bangladesh to India is registering a steady decline, and where, in several areas, various Indian products are being boycotted — India rushed its RAW chief to Bangladesh in order to retrieve its waning control and add vitality to its weakened clandestine links.

Padma Barrage and Teesta River

69. During his recent visit to China, the Bangladesh PM had successfully negotiated all-out Chinese help in overall rivers and water-management projects. The foremost of those agreed was the construction of the 2.1-km Padma Barrage, which has been approved by the government and would begin soon with Chinese help. The Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project is on the anvil and is expected to be approved soon. Both of these projects were being covertly opposed by India, since they would give Bangladesh more water security. The Chinese entry into this arena has further ruffled Indian feathers and given India another axe to grind.

Indian Credit Line

70. Questions are echoing in Bangladesh about the delivery of India’s 8-billion-dollar credit line, where India has been dragging its feet in a manner similar to what it was doing in Chabahar. At the same time, the questions of Hasina Wajid and the extradition request are also confronting the Bangladeshi public, who compare India’s earlier success in getting several accused militants extradited from Bangladesh with its current reluctance to honour the agreement in the case of Hasina Wajid.

Another Bee in India’s Bonnet

71. As the ghost of “Greater Bangladesh” refuses to leave India’s nightmares, it was resurrected again when Colonel (Retd) Abdul Hoque, a BNP leader, on 4 December 2025 stated: “Until we can separate these Seven Sisters and establish seven independent states, Bangladesh will not be safe. People are waiting to establish these seven states, but we cannot help them. I am saying it openly. For your survival, if they can occupy our country, why can’t we create new states for them?” The Greater Bangladesh issue was itself triggered by none other than the Indian security agencies, who, through their propaganda mouthpieces targeting Dr. Muhammad Yunus’s presentation of art books that he gifted to the visiting Pakistani and Turkish delegations in November 2025, alleged that he was reintroducing the vision of Greater Bangladesh. Since, for quite some time — and particularly after the May 2025 brief Pak-India conflict — India and Israel have made it clear that Pakistan and Türkiye are both adversaries, the Indo-Israeli cabal had joined hands against them. Already, by that time, there were indications of a possible development of a “NATO-like” regional platform, which, to the surprise of the Indo-Israeli lobbies, materialised as the MJDP; and, to their worst fears, Bangladesh has shown an inclination towards joining it. To thwart this Bangladeshi tilt towards the MJDP, both the Indo-Israeli lobbies and their allies are now leaving no stone unturned to undermine it, and are using all possible clandestine means and hybrid-warfare tactics.

Epilogue

72. Bangladesh is resetting its strategic compass and adopting a more independent course in foreign relations and diplomacy, which is irking India, which had always considered Bangladesh its colony — one it had secured in 1971. With Bangladesh engaging India’s adversaries, India is reacting furiously, resorting to every trick of the trade to regain its lost hegemony. The Bangladeshi public is well aware of India’s deceptive and dismal record of making tall promises to engage its friends and allies, offering them incentives of huge financial support, credit lines, etc., but then, once it ensnares these unsuspecting friends and foes alike, dragging its feet in order to prolong the development of those projects and force them into further dependence on India in return for strategic favours; the Bangladeshi public is unlikely to fall into this trap all over again. Cases of such deception and strategic trap-laying have been witnessed in the case of Chabahar in Iran, the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project in Myanmar, and in Nepal, the Maldives and Sri Lanka — and now this is a vivid case affecting Bangladesh.
73. While the Indo-Israeli HIAs were intensely focused on Pakistan, the Bangladesh situation was silently slipping out of their hands, until it was too late to carry out timely damage control. Now that Pakistan has been fortified to some extent by the formation of, and its acquisition of the lead in, the MJDP, India is rushing to scavenge its own strategic situation in and around Bangladesh. With the current disposition, it is more likely that, instead of getting any traction through standard diplomatic protocols, India will dive into the realm of hybrid warfare. It is likely that successive False Flag Operations will be engineered by the Indo-Israeli collaboration, so that Bangladesh can be coerced into seeking Indo-Israeli support to combat or resolve the issues.
74. In Afghanistan, India had carved out developments at highly inflated rates, which were strategically favourable only to India rather than to the people of Afghanistan. Indian contractors, on the other hand, had been paying protection monies and bribes to the Taliban, and in turn had earned their friendship and ingress into their rank and file, to the advantage of the controlling Indian HIAs. India had been arming the Northern Alliance, providing them protection through the NDS, and resettling and relocating turned-around veteran militants from the Syrian and Iraqi battlefields, who had been flown in and settled into the northern Afghan areas. This had been a tested, inexpensive way of waging warfare through hybrid means. India is financing these disruptive elements, who are harbouring terrorists and militants — veterans of hybrid warfare in other theatres — who are cooling their heels in Afghanistan. India had a unique opportunity to bet on all the horses in the race. India has been providing extensive covert support through logistics, financing, training and intelligence to these groups while remaining in the safe zones of Chabahar and Farkhor. It has been extending covert support through the NDS and other organisations in the former Republican government of Afghanistan, while burrowing deeper into the Afghan landscape. It had been using its energies and resources — particularly the NDS — to penetrate and harness the various terrorist groups in Afghanistan, and to acquire more direct control over these terrorist groups, who were expanding and in need of formal patronage. Using good-cop/bad-cop strategies in collaboration with the occupying forces, it made several inroads into the terrorist outfits, particularly the TTP. With the visible setbacks it is now facing, India is bound to use the services of its proxies in a more aggressive manner, escalating the already ongoing hybrid warfare that is encompassing the region.
75. The Indo-Israeli conspiracies are not riveted to Bangladesh alone. They are spewing their toxic, clandestine hybrid-warfare tactics across a much wider area. In our next part, we will make an effort to take stock of the situation being engineered in Afghanistan and western India, namely along Gujarat.

*** The author is the former Director General Intelligence Bureau.