Before being forced to flee Bangladesh following a violent student uprising after which the Army demanded her resignation, Sheikh Hasina, then Prime Minister, made a cryptic statement.
In May, well before the protests demanding the scrapping of government quotas had begun, Hasina had said that a "white man" had offered to build an airbase for his country in Bangladesh.
As reported by the Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star, Hasina claimed that if she had allowed this country, which she did not name, to build the airbase, she was told she "would face no problems" in the elections slated in the country for January 2024.
She alleged that conspiracies were being hatched to remove her from power and topple her government, even fearing that she could be assassinated like her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, fondly referred to as Bangabandhu, friend of Bengal and the founder father of the country.
Hasina also claimed that the white man's intentions were part of a conspiracy to create a Christian state encompassing parts of Bangladesh and Myanmar, with a base in the Bay of Bengal.
A number of thories emerged from that statement.
One was that the white man's country was the United States, which needed a base to keep an eye on China in the region.
It was also speculated by various media outlets that Hasina was hinting at Western nations' plans to carve out an independent nation for the ethnic Zo people living in parts of northeast India, southern Bangladesh, and western Myanmar.
Many in Hasina's own Awami League Party have supported her statements, claiming a conspiracy was afoot to create a Zo state called Zogam.
It could be created, they say, on the lines of the proposed Kuki state of Zalengam, comprising parts of Myanmar, Manipur, and the Bandarban district of Bangladesh.
Zalengam, which means freedom in Thadou-Kuki, a northern Kuki-Chin sub-branch, could mean an ideal land where all Kukis would live together.
The Zo people speak Kuki-Chin languages and their dispersal across these regions has been largely blamed on British colonial policies that drew borders based on politics rather than ethnicity.
Many tribal communities across north India have been Christianised, largely due to efforts of missionaries after the arrival of the British.
According to the 1901 Census, Christians constituted only 8 per cent of the population, while Hindus made up 60 per cent. By 1991, this number had risen to 34.11 per cent.
Taking into account then the projected 41 percent decadal growth in the overall state population from 1991 to 2011 on the basis of the 2011 census report, it is plausible, according to a FirstPost report, that the Christian population in the state may have surpassed 45 per cent by 2021.
Better educational and medical facilities offered by the missionaries improved the lifestyle of the tribals, who earlier spoke local dialects and were largely unlettered.
According to the Journal of North East India Studies, William Pettigrew was the first missionary to reach Manipur on February 6, 1894. He was sponsored by the American Baptist Mission Union and had previously worked in Dhaka under the Arthington Aborigenes Mission.
Pettigrew quickly established schools in two places in Manipur . Some of his students soon converted and others followed as they began appreciating the benefits of Western education.
The journal also notes that better healthcare facilities were associated with Christianity. On the recommendation of the reference committee of the American Baptist Mission Society, Dr Galen Greenfield Crozier, a medical missionary for the Baptist Church in India, and his wife went to Kangpokpi during the Kuki Uprising (1917-19) to provide medical treatment to the local people.
They started the first missionary dispensary and leprosy asylum at the new mission station of Kangpokpi on November 17, 1919. Both Dr Crozier and Pettigrew worked together in the north and northeast of Manipur.
The opening of the mission headquarters at Kangpokpi led to an enormous growth in the number of converts from the adjoining villages. This growth of Kuki churches continued through the 1940s and by 1945.
Getting back to Bangladesh again, suspicions of US being involved in Hasina's ouster have gained traction as the country has been critical of the 2024 Bangladeshi general elections that kept Hasina and her Awami League party in power.
The West backs main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its Islamist ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, which have close ties to Pakistan's security establishment.
However, as all conspiracy theories go, no hard and fast proof exists of such events actually occurring.
With an interim government having been sworn in, to be headed by Nobel prize winning Muhammad Yunus, one will have to wait and watch to see how things pan out.
... and if and airbase is built after all in Bangladesh for a foreign entity.
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