A delegation from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, including a two-star general, flew to Bangladesh on Tuesday, marking a sudden upgrade in military-to-military engagements between Dhaka and Islamabad that is unlikely to go down well in New Delhi.
Major General Shahid Amir Afsar, the ISI’s director general of analysis who previously served as Pakistan’s defence attache in Beijing, is part of the team that is on a four-day visit to Bangladesh amid a marked thaw in relations between the two countries, people familiar with the developments said on condition of anonymity.
The visit by the ISI team comes less than a week after a six-member Bangladeshi delegation led by Lt Gen SM Kamrul Hasan, the Principal Staff Officer of the Armed Forces Division, travelled to Pakistan during January 13-18 and met the top military leadership in Rawalpindi, including army chief General Asim Munir.
According to long-time Bangladesh watchers, the last publicly acknowledged visit by a senior ISI official to Dhaka was in 2009, when Pakistan’s spy agency sent an officer to help local authorities deal with a revolt in the Bangladesh Rifles, a paramilitary force. Official circles in New Delhi also have memories of the ISI’s role in using Bangladeshi soil to back militant groups in India’s northeastern states in the 1990s and 2000s.
Under the previous Sheikh Hasina government, contacts between the ISI and Bangladeshi organisations, especially the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), came to a halt. Hasina’s government also prosecuted a large number of people on charges of colluding with Pakistan during the 1971 war of liberation, drawing Islamabad’s ire.
A senior DGFI official received the ISI delegation when it arrived in Dhaka on January 21 on an Emirates Airlines flight via Dubai, the people cited above said. One of the members of the Pakistani delegation has a name very similar to ISI chief Lt Gen Asim Malik, and this triggered speculation that Pakistan’s top spymaster was in Dhaka.
The ISI team is set to interact with interlocutors in Dhaka and visit several military establishments, the people said.
There have been several high-level contacts between the political and security establishments of Bangladesh and Pakistan in recent weeks, adding to the disquiet in New Delhi over the sharp downturn in India-Bangladesh relations since the caretaker regime headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took over last August following Hasina’s ouster in a movement spearheaded by student leaders. Hasina is currently in self-exile in India.
The six-member Bangladeshi military delegation that travelled to Pakistan last week met the three service chiefs and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza. During their meeting on January 14, Lt Gen SM Kamrul Hasan and General Asim Munir discussed the “evolving security dynamics in the region” and further avenues for enhancing military cooperation, according to a readout from the Pakistani military’s media wing.
Hasan and Munir “underscored the importance of a stronger defence relationship, emphasising that the enduring partnership between the two brotherly nations must remain resilient against external influences”, the readout said. The reference to “external influences” was seen as an oblique reference to India’s position.
Munir also called for joint efforts to promote peace and stability in South Asia while ensuring that Pakistan and Bangladesh “continue to contribute to regional security through collaborative defence initiatives”, the readout said.
