- Six Bangladeshi intelligence officials recently visited Pakistan.
- The visit occurred on India's 80th Independence Day.
- India views renewed Dhaka-Islamabad ties with concern.
New Delhi/Ajeet Kumar: At least six officials of Bangladesh intelligence have recently visited Pakistan at a time when their Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s India visit is in doubt. According to a local media report, Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) officers left for Islamabad on August 15 on an “undisclosed mission"- the day India was celebrating its 80th Independence Day. At the time the officials left for Islamabad, there were talks in diplomatic circles that Rahman might visit New Delhi; however, his attendance at the upcoming BRICS Summit was not on the table, as per our diplomatic sources.
Bangladesh spy agency left for Islamabad on India's I-Day
As per the Bangladeshi media report, the DGFI team was led by a colonel-level officer and had left Dhaka’s Hazrat Shah Jalal International Airport on a Thai Airways flight (TG-322) for the Pakistani capital via Bangkok.
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The report claimed Colonel Magfuz-ul-Bari was leading the team. Other top officers included Wing Commander Imrul Kais, Mohiuddin Mohammad Asif, Squadron Leader Raihan Mohammad Chowdhury, Murad Hossain Tushar and Khandokar Ariful Islam. They met their counterparts in the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Pakistan's ISI outreach
This development follows the visit of DGFI Director General Major General Kaisar Rashid Chowdhury to Pakistan in April this year, just a month after he assumed charge of Bangladesh’s intelligence agency. The trip marked the first visit by a DGFI chief to Pakistan since the country’s independence in 1971.
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Major General Chowdhury, who also oversees intelligence and counterterrorism, travelled to Islamabad on 1 April, less than a month after his visit to New Delhi in March. His first foreign assignment after taking over as DGFI Director General was to New Delhi on 1 March.
Why is it concerning for India's security?
The Pakistan visit was viewed in New Delhi with both interest and concern, given the Indian establishment’s longstanding worries about the deep involvement of the Pakistan Army and ISI during the 18-month tenure of the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government.
During his two-day stay in New Delhi, Major General Chowdhury held meetings with senior Indian national security officials. However, he carefully avoided meeting Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to India, Riaz Hamidullah, who had planned to host him for dinner.
The renewed engagement between Dhaka and Islamabad has come under close scrutiny in New Delhi. Security officials and analysts there see parallels with Pakistan’s evolving defence relationship with Saudi Arabia, which has grown from training and intelligence-sharing into deeper strategic coordination. Indian analysts warn that a similar trajectory involving Bangladesh could complicate India’s eastern security calculations and undermine New Delhi’s “Neighbourhood First” policy at a time of regional uncertainty.
“We have seen a trend in Bangladesh in which identity has shifted from being Bangla first and Muslim second, to one that increasingly emphasises being Muslim first and Bangla second,” said Robinder Nath Sachdev, an international relations expert and president of the Imagindia Institute, speaking to Middle East Eye.