Is Pakistan’s ISI trying to exploit India’s frosty ties with Bangladesh?

medium117582593Days after a top Bangladeshi military officer met Pakistan Army chief Gen Syed Asim Munir, Islamabad has now sent a delegation of intelligence officials to Dhaka, in what could be a fresh security challenge for India.The four-member team from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency flew to Dhaka on January 21, Hindustan Times reports. Maj Gen Shahid Amir Afsar, the ISI’s director general of analysis, was part of the team that was on a four-day visit to Bangladesh, according to the report.The visit comes amid political uncertainty in Bangladesh caused by the dramatic ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her subsequent escape to India last August. Since then, ties between Dhaka and New Delhi, once all-weather allies, have been anything but cordial due to rising anti-India sentiments in Bangladesh.The interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has demanded that New Delhi extradite Hasina, who’s currently in self-exile in India, for “judicial process”. The Modi government, on the other hand, has voiced concerns about rising religious intolerance and atrocities against minorities in Bangladesh.While India is treading cautiously over the rapidly changing political environment in its eastern neighbour, the new-found bonhomie between Dhaka and Islamabad will certainly add to its security concerns.Of course, India’s apprehension is genuine given it helped Bangladesh to gain independence from Pakistan in 1971.So, what brings Pakistan closer to Bangladesh again? Does the former see an opportunity in the ongoing crisis in Bangladesh to reset their ties? Is Islamabad trying to convince Dhaka to treat India as their common enemy? Or is this ISI’s new strategy after its “failed experiment” in Afghanistan?But before we tackle these questions, here’s how things have unfolded in recent weeks. Pakistan COAS Gen Asim Munir with Bangladesh Army PSO Lt. Gen Kamr-ul-Hassan in Rawalpindi today. Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words. pic.twitter.com/CUMWk25vGm

— Murtaza Solangi (@murtazasolangi) January 14, 2025 A new security alliance on cards?On January 14, Lt Gen SM Kamrul Hassan, principal staff officer of the armed forces division and the second-in-command of the Bangladesh Army, met Pakistani Army chief Gen Munir in Islamabad.This is the first time in as many years that the two countries have held such military-level meetings. The Pakistani military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), called them “brotherly nations”.Without naming India, Munir and Hassan “underscored the importance of a stronger defence relationship, emphasising that the enduring partnership between the two brotherly nations must remain resilient against external influences”, according to ISPR.Days after Hassan’s visit, a team of ISI officers, including a two-star general — Maj Gen Afsar — visited Dhaka, a development which is likely to unnerve the Indian security establishment given ISI’s past role in fomenting trouble in India’s northeastern region, which shares an 1,800km border with Bangladesh.This new bonhomie between ISI and Bangladeshi spy agency, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), comes after 15 years of pause in their ties during Hasina’s rule. Hasina’s overtly anti-Pakistan stand had come to the fore when her Awami League government started prosecuting scores of people for allegedly colluding with Pakistan during the 1971 liberation war, following which Bangladesh was born. medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/uNIqjJMIa_c?si=aNsGv7FuuLWXKRYtHow ISI trained NE insurgentsISI had deep links with armed separatist groups in India’s Northeast, many of whom have joined the mainstream after signing peace pacts with the Centre.Journalist-author Rajeev Bhattacharyya’s book, ULFA - The Mirage of Dawn (2024), sheds light on how the ISI had facilitated training for cadres of these rebel groups in the 1990s and 2000s.The unholy nexus began when Pakistan armed and trained the first batch of militants of the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) in 1991-92.One group was trained near Peshawar and other functionaries were taken for short visits to Kandahar in Afghanistan and the arms bazaar at Darra Adam Khel near the Safed Koh mountains in Pakistan, according to the book.Former ISI chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani interacted and shook hands with a batch of Ulfa functionaries when they were undergoing training in the country, claims Bhattacharyya, who interviewed a number of former leaders of the organisation.After Ulfa, another group from Assam, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), Manipur’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) also sent their members to different locations in Pakistan to undergo training in arms and explosives.After their return, these groups had carried out subversive activities in their respective homelands, including attacks on both civilians and security forces. medium117580755Why anti-India elements couldn’t flourish under HasinaOnce a hotbed of armed separatist insurgency, the Northeast saw a 70% decline in violence in the past decade, according to home ministry data.Much of this is attributable to the erstwhile Hasina government’s crackdown on Indian rebel groups which had training camps and hideouts in the neighbouring country during Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) tenure.After her 2008 election victory, Hasina flushed out those separatist insurgent groups. Top rebel leaders of Ulfa, NDFB and the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) from Manipur were captured and handed over to India, thereby easing the latter’s security concerns.In recent years, the Centre has signed peace pacts with these organisations, although some of their factions such as Ulfa-Independent led by Paresh Baruah and Manipur’s PLA continue to operate from Myanmar.Given the ongoing civil war in Myanmar, the possibility of these smaller rebel factions shifting to “safer” locations like Bangladesh cannot be ruled out. And who else other than ISI is better placed to revive connections with such elements so as to foment fresh troubles for India!Did Pak plot Hasina’s ouster?The Awami League government was known for its zero tolerance for Islamist terror and jihadist elements that had spread their roots whenever the BNP came to power.With Hasina’s exit, India’s security establishment fears the revival of radical elements which could directly or indirectly pose a threat to India’s internal security.Intelligence sources previously told TOI that Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), the student wing of hardline Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, tacitly played a role in inflaming the streets and turning the protest over quotas into a determined effort to replace Hasina with a regime that is friendly to Pakistan and China and hospitable for anti-India terror groups.The intelligence inputs alluded to meticulous planning undertaken by ICS members several months prior, aimed at instigating widespread violence across the nation.“The ISI-backed Jamaat-e-Islami had received substantial financial backing earlier this year to destabilise the Hasina government. A significant portion of this funding is believed to have originated from Chinese entities operating in Pakistan,” an official told TOI. medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/_qCIqBUctDQ?si=wSS3E_49xbTfm975ISI shifts focus from Afghanistan to BangladeshBangladesh could be the ISI’s new laboratory after its failed experiment in Afghanistan.Pakistan recently launched airstrikes inside Afghanistan targeting terrorist hideouts. This came after a recent surge in attacks on its security forces by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).Pakistan has repeatedly accused Afghanistan of harbouring TTP militants. Kabul denies these allegations but acknowledges a growing presence of foreign militant groups on its soil.The fall of Kabul in 2021 was seen as nothing short of a victory for the Pakistani spy agency, which had continued to support the Taliban while ostensibly also backing the US war on terror.However, Pakistan probably failed to foresee the blowback that could ensue from the Afghan Taliban’s complex relationship with the TTP.The latter was formed in 2007 to fight the Pakistan military but it remains an ideological cousin of the Afghan Taliban — it pursues similar objectives like overthrowing the government and imposing its interpretation of the Sharia law. Its leaders have also spoken about establishing an Islamic Caliphate in Pakistan.Present tense, future uncertainMeanwhile, a key adviser of Yunus’s interim government has said that Hasina’s Awami League will not be allowed to participate in elections, news agency PTI reported.“The elections will be contested among pro-Bangladesh groups only,” said Mahfuz Alam, a top leader of the Anti-Discrimination Movement, which spearheaded the mass uprising that toppled Hasina’s regime last August.Addressing a street rally in central Chandpur district, Alam said on January 25 that only former PM Khaleda Zia’s BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami and other “pro-Bangladesh” groups would carry on their politics in the country. He added that either of these “will establish future governance through a fair electoral process”.“But Awami League’s rehabilitation will not be allowed in this country,” he added.The Awami League has been virtually out of the open political landscape since August 5, 2024, with most of its leaders and Hasina’s cabinet members either in jail on murder and other criminal charges or on the run at home and abroad.Earlier, the BNP said it was against banning any political party, visibly weighing its support for arch-rival Awami League’s existence in the political field. It demanded elections in the quickest possible time after minimal reforms, calling it a continued process.Last month, Yunus said the next general election could take place by the end of 2025 or the first half of 2026. He had, however, said the timing of the election would largely depend upon the political consensus and the extent of the reforms that must be carried out before it.With inputs from agencies