A guest house of a leading corporate house in Bangladesh’s capital city had unexpected guests a few days ago. Some senior military and intelligence officials were among the guests.
The meeting was presided over by a pro-Pakistani adviser to the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Besides Bangladeshi, Indian intelligence agencies are keeping a close watch on the sudden rise of the adviser in the Bangladesh Prime Minister Office (PMO) and his mission to place his own people at many key positions.
In the guest house meeting, aspirants for the top job in the army and those known as anti-Awami League dispensation were present. The intelligence agencies have vital inputs that the meeting resolved to mount maximum pressure on PM Hasina to remove General Aziz as army chief and appoint one Lt-Gen from their cabal.
It also decided to work on a strategy to induct the ‘pro-Pakistani adviser’ into the cabinet and give him Defence portfolio so far handled by PM Hasina herself. And finally, the ‘pro-Pakistani adviser’ should be elevated as PM with Presidency for Hasina where she would just be titular head.
The adviser under the scanner has reportedly strong fundamentalist and global jihadi connections. A high level enquiry has been started by Bangladesh on tip-off from India about terror financing by big corporate.
Intelligence has details about the adviser’s house in Saudi Arabia which he shared with his in-law who is a BNP leader and businessman. The house has reportedly become the key staging point for the purported regime change plot.
It is in this house not far from the holy sites that this adviser and his cohorts confabulated with the ‘operations’ cadre of a ‘Major Power’ and later with ISI officials from Pakistan. The ISI team in Dubai includes an officer who has studied with the son of the Bangladesh PM Adviser in Karachi – one who is a periodic visitor to Bangladesh under business cover.
The ISI biggest station for operations against India and Bangladesh is located in Dubai, both the legal and illegal residencies meaning those ISI operatives using diplomatic cover and those with cover assignments.
The adviser is under surveillance but for the intelligence agencies, it was not yet clear whether he can be questioned, as direction on that is awaited at the highest level.
He even tried to convince the Bangladesh Foreign Office that China (by its clout on Myanmar government) and Pakistan (by its control over ARSA and other jihadi elements) held the key to Bangladesh’s Rohingya problem and that India had no real role to play in it.
The intelligence agencies are wary of Pakistan’s possible plot coupled with China’s assistance from behind the scene to created disturbance in India via Bangladesh. Through its “middlemen”, Pakistani authorities are trying to consolidate its position in Bangladesh.
For the people of Bangladesh, the genocide and discrimination by Pakistan before 1971 stills continue to haunt.
