Bangladesh Tilts to Pakistan: ISI Opens Dhaka Cell
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- Sajeeb Wazed Joy, addressing a Delhi media event virtually, declared Bangladesh 'another Pakistan' on India's eastern front, warning that terrorists would enter India from Bangladesh instead of Pakistan within decades.
- Pakistan's ISI set up a dedicated special cell within the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka following a four-day October 2025 visit by then-joint chiefs head General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, and ISI chief Lt General Asim Malik visited Dhaka in January 2025 — the first such visit by the agency's head in decades.
- Bangladesh and Pakistan revived the direct Karachi-Chittagong shipping route after decades, ended a 14-year suspension on direct commercial flights with a Biman Bangladesh Dhaka-Karachi flight in January, and agreed to grant visa-free access to diplomats and military personnel.
- Bangladesh army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman shifted from a secular 2024 stance urging Krishna-inspired harmony to publicly embracing Islamic values, growing a long Islamic beard; the army raised a new unit with four companies named after the first four Caliphs and changed its battle cry from 'Joy Bangla' to 'Allahu Akbar'.
- The Yunus interim government lifted Hasina's ban on Jamaat-e-Islami, which is now Bangladesh's main opposition party and had long served as the ISI's local vehicle, according to retired Lt Gen Manik Kumar Das.
- Tarique Rahman's BNP government chose China for the Prime Minister's first foreign visit — breaking the tradition of Bangladeshi leaders making New Delhi their first stop — though India remains Dhaka's second-largest trade partner and largest development aid donor.
- Sheikh Hasina, making her first public address since her August 2024 ouster, announced she would return to Bangladesh in December despite the risk of imprisonment or death.
Why it matters: India's security perimeter on its 4,000-km eastern border is being reshaped: ISI presence in Dhaka and the Bangladesh army's Islamisation directly threaten India's counter-terror calculus, as former envoy Anil Trigunayat noted Bangladesh could now join Pakistan and China as a third security challenge. The shift also carries economic costs — Bangladesh's growth had averaged over 6% under Hasina, and analyst Sandeep Unnithan warned the new Islamised model puts religion ahead of the economy, eroding the development gains that once made Bangladesh outpace Pakistan.
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