Issuing a high alert to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Indian intelligence agencies working in Bangladesh informed that hours after the Bangkok dialogue between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bangladesh interim government’s chief advisor Mohammad Yunus, the chief of Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), Major General Jahangir Alam, flew to Spain on Monday to share stage with Pakistan’s espionage agency ISI’s representatives in a conference where India will not be present.
The report submitted to the MEA by agencies has recommended deploying India’s intelligence assets in Spain to closely monitor DGFI chief’s engagement with ISI officials during his visit.
The DGFI’s participation in a forum alongside ISI representatives is being viewed as highly significant, especially in light of the recent, and notably rare, meeting between India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Pranay Verma, and Chief of Army Staff General Upendra Dwivedi in New Delhi on March 28. The timing and context of these developments have heightened strategic sensitivities within Indian security circles.
In the backdrop of a crucial diplomatic meeting between Modi and Yunus in Bangkok, developments within South Asia’s intelligence circuit have drawn renewed attention, particularly those involving Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Sources in the MEA said Alam, the Director General of DGFI, departed for Madrid to attend a high-profile international intelligence conference hosted by Spain’s national intelligence agency, Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI).
“Alam is accompanied by Brigadier General Mehedi Hossain Kabir, head of the DGFI’s elite Counter Terrorism and Intelligence Bureau (CTIB) wing, along with two other junior officials,” said an official of the MEA.
In the report to New Delhi, it was mentioned that Alam’s visit was kept under wraps and many of his department have an information that he would “out of station for a few days.”
The conference in Madrid brings together senior intelligence figures from Pakistan’s ISI and Turkey’s Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı (MIT), amid swirling speculation of deepening intelligence engagements between Bangladesh’s military leadership and regional power centers like Pakistan and Turkey.
Alam is expected to meet with MIT Director Ibrahim Kalin, who also serves as the chief foreign policy advisor to the Turkish Prime Minister. While officials have been guarded about Alam’s specific agenda, the potential for behind-the-scenes strategic dialogues raises eyebrows—especially in light of recent events in Bangladesh.
Intelligence sources suggest that the ISI may have played a covert role in fueling the student-led movement that led to the toppling of the Sheikh Hasina government in August 2024. That assertion gained further traction after three high-ranking ISI officers—Maj Gen Shahid Amir Afsar, Maj Gen Alam Amir Awan, and Muhammad Usman Zatif—visited Dhaka in January 2025. The delegation reportedly toured sensitive areas along the India-Bangladesh border, including Rangpur, a region critically positioned near India’s vulnerable Siliguri Corridor, often dubbed the 'Chicken’s Neck'.
“This visit followed a January 13–18 diplomatic-military engagement, when Bangladesh’s Principal Staff Officer of the Armed Forces Division, Lieutenant General S M Kamr-ul-Hassan, traveled to Rawalpindi. During the visit, he toured strategic Pakistani naval units in Karachi and met with top military figures, including Rear Admiral Abdul Munib (Pakistan Fleet Commander), Rear Admiral Faisal Amin (Coast Commander), and Rear Admiral Salman Ilyas, MD of Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works,” said an intelligence officer.
Adding fuel to speculation about deepening clandestine ties, intelligence agencies came to know about small consignments of Turkish-origin automatic weapons which were smuggled into Bangladesh and possibly used during the July–August 2024 violence.
“The optics of Bangladesh’s increasing engagement with Pakistan’s and Turkey’s intelligence apparatuses raise concerns in New Delhi and beyond—particularly as India continues to monitor its eastern neighbor’s evolving security and geopolitical trajectory,” said the officer.
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