Bangladesh has become Pakistan, should concern India, says Sheikh Hasina's son

In her first public address since her ouster and exile two years ago, former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday said that convicted militants had been set free in Bangladesh. Her adviser and son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, warned that Bangladesh had "become another Pakistan", adding that the "development should be a matter of concern for India". During her term as the PM, Hasina had clamped down on anti-India elements and terrorists.Hasina was addressing the public in a video call at an event organised by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of South Asia in New Delhi.The warnings by Hasina and her son come amid reports of renewed diplomatic and political ties between Bangladesh and Pakistan since the change of government in Dhaka in August 2024.Joy, Hasina's former ICT adviser, said Bangladesh's economy collapsed under the Muhammad Yunus regime and that it will become a rogue state. He claimed killings in police custody continued after Hasina's ouster and that the "government has legalised political killings since August 5, 2024". Joy also questioned discrepancies in death tolls from the July-August 2024 protests, noting the UN reported 1,400 deaths while the government said 800, and asked who the additional 600 were.He alleged an "unprecedented indemnity" was given to protesters who killed policemen, preventing their trial, and urged international media to investigate post-ouster violence more closely.FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER REMINDS OF 2004 ARMS HAUL Aminul Hoque Polash, a former Bangladeshi diplomat and intelligence officer, recalled past incidents of violence and arms smuggling to challenge claims that militancy has not returned. He said that on August 21, 2004, grenades were thrown at an Awami League rally in an attempt to assassinate Sheikh Hasina and eliminate the party leadership, killing 24 people and injuring more than 300.The Ten Truck Arms Haul, he added, showed how Bangladesh was used as a route for weapons intended for insurgent networks in the region. Even a foreign diplomat was not spared, with British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury attacked at the Shahjalal Shrine. “So when the current authorities deny the return of militancy, I don’t,” Polash said.In April 2004, Bangladeshi police and the Coast Guard intercepted one of South Asia's largest illegal arms consignments at Chittagong port, seizing 10 truckloads of weapons allegedly destined for militants of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), an armed separatist group then active in India's Assam.After returning to power in 2009, Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government ordered a fresh investigation into the case. In 2018, a Bangladeshi court sentenced former Home Minister Lutfozzaman Babar, who served in Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government between 2001 and 2006, to death for his role in the arms smuggling conspiracy. However, Babar escaped the gallows after the Bangladesh High Court acquitted him in the case on January 14, 2025.HOW BANGLADESH-PAKISTAN RELATIONS HAVE IMPROVED SINCE 2024A high-level meeting between former Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took place in December 2024.Direct sea trade between the two countries also resumed for the first time since 1971, with Pakistani cargo ships docking at Chittagong port. Bilateral trade has risen by about 27% between August and December 2024.Pakistan's foreign minister visited Dhaka in 2025, the first such trip in over a decade.Visa procedures were also eased, and direct flights between the two nations also resumed in January this year.These steps mark a clear shift from the strained ties of the previous 15 years.WILL RETURN TO BANGLADESH DESPITE CASES, SAYS HASINAHasina reiterated her resolve to return to Bangladesh despite cases against her. "I will return to the people of Bangladesh, I trust them," Hasina said. She added that fear cannot decide her duty to the people and that her return was not about power but about restoring "security, development, prosperity and peace" and putting Bangladesh back on the right track."They may jail me, they may kill me... anything may happen, but I still have to return," she said, recalling attempts to stop her return in 1981 under then-president Ziaur Rahman.Hasina alleged that Bangladesh's economy had deteriorated sharply since her ouster, with GDP growth slowed, industrial production contracted for the first time in decades, bank defaults surged, poverty increased and investment weakened. Hasina claimed the BNP government was running by borrowing 700-900 crore Taka from Bangladesh Bank every month.She also said many factories had shut down and numerous industrialists and business owners had either fled the country or gone into hiding.THOUSANDS FACED ARREST, TORTURE SINCE MY OUSTER: HASINAHasina alleged thousands of Awami League leaders, workers and supporters, along with police personnel, journalists, lawyers, judges and members of minority communities, had faced arrests, torture and violence since her ouster.She claimed the 2024 movement evolved into a coordinated assault on the Constitution and accused the current dispensation of suppressing dissent and targeting those associated with the Liberation War. Minority community members, judges, cultural figures and even rickshaw pullers are being targeted, she said. "No one who stands for the Liberation War are attacked," Hasina also said."Convicted militants have been released," Hasina alleged.She claimed her government had set up a judicial inquiry commission on July 18, 2024, to investigate every death and incident of violence during the unrest, but the interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus halted the investigation. An indemnity was granted to those involved in the violence. "If they truly wanted justice, why did they stop the inquiry?" she asked.The decision to give indemnity to killers of policemen revealed their true motive, she said. "If they weren't afraid, why did they not allow the truth to come out?" she asked.Hasina also alleged the July-August 2024 unrest was not a peaceful student movement from the beginning. Her government had pursued dialogue, appealed the High Court's quota verdict and invited student leaders for talks. The quota protests were turned into a one-point demand for her removal and used by organised groups as a cover for violence and to seize power outside the ballot box. A "meticulously designed plan" was divulged by Yunus himself, she said.Joy's comparison of Bangladesh to Pakistan points to concerns over rising extremism, political violence, economic decline and the targeting of minority communities and secular forces, developments that he and other speakers at the event said risk pushing the country in a direction that could affect regional stability.- EndsPublished By: Anand SinghPublished On: Aug 5, 2026 20:50 IST