Security agencies in India have uncovered a series of covert meetings between Bangladeshi student leaders, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officers from Pakistan, and American security officials in Pakistan, Dubai, and Doha from April to September 2023.
The meetings were reportedly part of a conspiracy to destabilise the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh, according to intelligence gathered by Indian agencies.
Acting in coordination with various intelligence agencies, Indian security operatives have pieced together a disturbing timeline of events following the deadly students' protests in Bangladesh.
The protests, which resulted in around 1,000 deaths, appear to have been planned by a select group of students.
These students were handpicked as "coordinators" for their ability to mobilise anti-government sentiment and were subsequently sent abroad for training and meetings with foreign officials.
The operation is believed to have started in April 2023, when one student, whose identity remains undisclosed for security reasons, travelled to Pakistan.
During this visit, he met with an ISI officer to discuss the initial plans for the movement.
Over the following months, three more students made similar trips, leaving Dhaka's Shah Jalal International Airport on different dates to avoid detection by Bangladeshi intelligence agencies.
Strategic meetings and 'hidden agendas'
The visits to Pakistan were followed by meetings in Doha and Dubai. According to Defence Analyst and senior journalist Chandan Nandy, a retired ISI lieutenant general was tasked with liaising with these Bangladeshi students.
This retired officer, operating under an assumed name, reportedly visited Bangladesh multiple times over a year to coordinate the covert operation.
“Indian security professionals continue to amass and analyse a large volume of information emanating from different sources (including scanned copies of the students’ passports) within and outside Bangladesh,” said an Indian official.
This information reveals a critical link between the students and the Qatari government, which was allegedly used by US security officials to funnel large sums of money into various bank accounts in Bangladesh and abroad.
The same Pakistani retired ISI officer was said to have met another group of Bangladeshi students in a Doha hotel between April and September 2023.
This was around the same time that the US State Department, led by then-Ambassador Peter Haas, began applying diplomatic pressure on the Sheikh Hasina regime to hold “free, fair, and violence-free elections.”
US involvement and financial networks
Indian security officials suspect that “some US citizens”—whose real identities are still being verified—checked into the same Doha hotel and possibly interacted with the Bangladeshi students.
“We are closely examining the role that at least three of them played during these meetings and later following their return to the US,” an Indian security official said.
Additionally, there is suspicion that a senior Bangladeshi professional in the social development sector, now a significant figure in the interim government, met with the ISI lieutenant general in Doha at the same time as the students.
By September 2023, the student coordinators were fully identified and assembled. A small team of three of these students met with their Pakistani handlers in a Dubai hotel on at least “six to seven” occasions.
The Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) in Bangladesh had some preliminary information about the students' visits to Pakistan, Dubai, and Doha but failed to grasp the full scale of the operation.
'Conspiracy' against the Hasina government
According to Indian security specialists, Sheikh Hasina was briefed in May 2024 about the US-backed operation involving students and university professors, but she reportedly could not comprehend the depth and extent of the conspiracy.
“Hasina had been briefed about the US operation involving the students and university professors in May 2024, but she couldn’t grasp or believe the extent and depth of the conspiracy,” an official said.
While the Bangladeshi and Indian officials focused on preparing for the January 7 elections, the Russian intelligence network was “alive” to the situation.
Russian operatives were closely monitoring the “unusual” meetings between American and Pakistani intelligence officials and Bangladeshi students.
This situation was reflected in a statement from Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, who suggested during a weekly briefing in Moscow in November 2023 that Peter Haas had engaged in discussions to organise a mass anti-Awami League protest in Bangladesh.
Student protests and foreign influence
Further complicating the scenario, Indian national security officials now believe they have sufficient evidence to link the Hizbut Tehrir—banned in Bangladesh in 2009—to the student protests.
These protests are thought to have roots in a series of secretive gatherings known as 'Gurubar Adda,' started by a group of Dhaka University students in 2021.
One of the prominent figures in this group, Mahfuz Alam, now serves as a special assistant to the interim government Chief Adviser Mohammad Yunus.
In 2023, around the time some students were visiting Pakistan, several members of the Chhatra Odhikar Sangrakkhan Parishad (Students Rights Protection Council) resigned to launch a new political platform called Ganatantri Chhatra Shakti.
This platform also included members from 'Gurubar Adda’s Pathachakra,' adding to the complexity of the opposition’s mobilisation strategy.
Internal conflicts and a disappearing police chief
According to Bangladeshi police sources, former Detective Branch Chief of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Mohammad Harun-ur Rashid, received intelligence about the students’ conspiracy from his own sources.
Before he disappeared from the public eye, Rashid reportedly summoned the top six leaders of the student movement, including Sarjis Alam, Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud, and Hasnat Abdullah, to interrogate them about their connections to Pakistan and the US.
Rashid’s sudden disappearance is said to coincide with his debriefing at a Dhaka-based embassy of a Western country, where he was reportedly sheltered and questioned about the information he had gathered from the student leaders.
The revelations of covert meetings and the involvement of multiple international actors, including Pakistani and American intelligence agencies, highlight a complex geopolitical game playing out in Bangladesh.
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