How Pakistan envoy's exit from Bangladesh amid ‘honeytrap scandal' risks the 2 nations' improving ties
The report said the Pakistan High Commission has confirmed that Deputy High Commissioner Muhammad Asif will serve as the acting high commissioner, but did not specify the duration of Maroof's leave in their official communication.
Maroof's sudden departure followed purpoted photos and videos featuring him and a woman, said to be a senior Bangladesh Bank official, going viral on social media, sparking allegations of a possible honeytrap scandal. 'On the same day, the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka formally informed Bangladesh's Ministry of Foreign Affairs of his departure,' Bangladeshi news portal Prothom Alo quoted a senior foreign ministry official as saying.
Dhaka: Even as Operation Sindoor was underway, a full-blown diplomatic scandal broke out between Pakistan and Bangladesh over an alleged honeytrap scandal involving a top diplomat. Syed Ahmed Maroof, Pakistan's High Commissioner to Bangladesh since December 2023, left Dhaka for Islamabad via Dubai on 11 May in an Emirates flight.
The report, however, added that the Pakistan High Commission 'unofficially' indicated that Maroof is expected to be on leave for 2 weeks.
Speaking to ThePrint, Bangladeshi journalist Sahidul Hasan Khokon said that this comes as a big blow to the improving relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan as Syed Ahmed Maroof has played an important role in bringing the two countries together after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government on 5 August, 2024, following a mass uprising.
Also read: Jogendranath Mandal could've been Bengal's Ambedkar. Backing Jinnah made him history's footnote
Anatomy of a scandal
According to Khokon, the woman in question whose pictures and videos posing with Syed Ahmed Maroof are all over social media has an apartment in Dhaka where the High Commissioner and his friend Azhar Mahmud were allegedly frequent visitors. He added that public attention was drawn largely because the woman herself had shared several of these photos with Maroof on her social media accounts. 'The pictures have now been deleted from her feed but they have been picked up by other users and gone viral ever since the scandal broke,' Khokon said.
In its report, Bangladeshi news outlet Kalbela identified the woman as a high-level Bangladesh Bank official. When Kalbela reached her for a reaction, she admitted that she has known Maroof for a long time and been to many public events with him. She added that she has not levelled any charges against him and that she is in close touch with high commissioners of other embassies as well.
Addressing rumours of their recent visit to Cox's Bazar, she told Kalbela she had gone to the tourist spot to vacation with members of her family, while Maroof was there with his family. It was a chance meeting between them at Cox's Bazar.
In a Facebook post that has now gone viral, Bangladeshi influencer and political commentator Aminul Hoque Polash has said Maroof was no ordinary high commissioner but an important asset for Pakistan in the changing geo-politics of the region.
'In the last nine months, Maroof has crisscrossed the entire country, conducted hundreds of meetings, given press interviews and firmly established himself as an important player in Bangladesh's current affairs. Officials and the Pakistan embassy were aware of their closeness as she was a regular visitor at the embassy building,' Polash wrote.
A highly-placed source in the intelligence agencies had told ThePrint that before Operation Sindoor, Bangladesh had undertaken a series of rather unusual strategic measures.
A high-level delegation comprising senior members of the Pakistan Army and intelligence services had visited Bangladesh on 23 January, 2025, under strict confidentiality. The delegation toured several air bases and military facilities and held meetings with high-ranking officials of the Bangladesh government. The Bangladeshi delegation reportedly expressed significant interest in acquiring Pakistan's advanced military equipment, particularly the JF-17 Thunder fighter jets.
Earlier, on 21 December, 2024, the source said, a Pakistani ship had docked at the Chittagong Port, carrying around 678 sealed containers. While a few of them contained sugar, soda, three-piece suits, and potatoes to avoid scrutiny, around 580 containers were secretly transported to the Chittagong Cantonment. The operation was overseen by Major General Mir Mushfiqur Rahman of the General Officer Commanding, 24 Infantry Division and Area Commander, Chittagong Area, Chittagong Cantonment.
In view of this, Khokon said to ThePrint that Bangladesh should not let this slide and investigate Maroof.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
Also read: BJP isn't getting Bengal. Mamata keeps beating Modi-Shah in her Ludo game
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
39 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Grief, grace, and gratitude – in a time of tragedy
In this week of absolute tragedy, it is a moment for us to stand in solidarity with Air India. I am writing this in Vienna, sitting on the tarmac of the airport, where our Air India flight from Newark to New Delhi has been diverted, along with several others because of Israel's overnight strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. The aviation challenge — seven Air India flights have been diverted to Vienna alone — has been necessitated because the Iran airspace is closed and the Pakistan airspace has been closed since Operation Sindoor. The aircraft needs more fuel for this unforecastable geopolitical development and a new flight path to take us home. Captain Sunil Simon, crew members Suresh, Khushboo, among others are all well beyond their duty hours. But no one has shown a single sign of irritability or strain. That this has happened hours after the horrific crash of London-bound Air India 171, less than a minute after take-off, makes this stellar professionalism even more remarkable. Imagine, operating in the traumatic overhang of losing your colleagues and friends to an air crash. Consider what the last few hours have been like for the airline staff to have to remain stoic, even smiling, in the immediate aftermath of a massive personal tragedy. And now this latest strain on their emotions and mental strength. Yet, how many of us will take a moment to appreciate the airline. If anything, it's something of a lazy habit for many Indians to take potshots at the airline, even while choosing it when flying elderly parents abroad, because they know fully well that western airlines will never offer that personal touch. The same people would not even whisper a protest in the face of borderline racism on some airlines. Think about the crash and the sweeping armchair commentary that followed in sections of social media. One publicity-seeker went from studio to studio cribbing about how the air conditioning had not worked well on the Delhi-Ahmedabad leg of the plane that crashed, making an absolutely inaccurate link to the tragedy. And he was allowed to do so. Others did not hesitate to make generalisations about the airline or the pilot in command. I am no aviation expert but the alacrity with which some sought to blame pilot Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and his co-pilot Captain Clive Kunder, was ghoulish and frankly, tone deaf and callous. We put a timer on the CCTV footage of the crash to show how Captain Sabharwal had only 33 seconds in which to make an intervention. On the CCTV footage you can see the plane take off smoothly and by the clock, half a minute later, it descends, erupting into an orange ball of fire on impact. Those who really understand aviation and planes point out that when you do not even have a whole minute to respond, Captain Sabharwal did the only thing he could. He made a Mayday distress call to the air traffic controller. In other crashes, where an engine has failed, because the plane is already cruising, the pilot has been able to bring it down, let's say on water or a safe patch. Here, the pilot was not able to lift the plane to a higher altitude; he clearly seemed to lose power immediately after take-off and he literally had no options. Think for a moment of that man at the helm of a split-second response before his life and the lives of the passengers at the back, literally went up in smoke. Think of how a universe can be upended in 32 seconds. And at least then, some of us might be less cavalier and casual in our commentary. Aerospace engineering expert Aditya Paranjape, a professor at Monash University, told me that 'prima facie... there is no human error. That the plane was able to take off smoothly shows the configurations entered by the pilots were accurate.' He believes, like many other experts I spoke with, that both engines appear to have failed, however rare that may be. While there may be questions about maintenance, surely there should be many sharp questions for Boeing, the manufacturer of the 787 Dreamliner that went down in Ahmedabad. Especially if the investigation reveals that both engines did, in fact, collapse on take-off. This would be the time to go back to the appearance of the Boeing CEO before a US Senate Panel. He actually admitted to 'serious safety missteps'. This hearing took place after the door of an Alaskan Airlines 737-Max blew out. Isn't he the one playing with lives? Shouldn't some of our contempt and anger be directed at corporate behemoths like Boeing? Over the years, there have been management issues with Air India. When the airline was government-owned (across parties) it was not able to unshackle itself from a sarkari subculture. When the ill-conceived and unplanned merger of Indian Airlines and Air India took place under the UPA government, the airline took a hit. And now that the Tatas have given Air India a new beginning, its staff — pilots and crew — should not be shackled by capitalist corporate norms. Not when it comes to a profession that literally can be about life and death. On the plane just now — we are still on the ground a few hours later — a huge round of applause went up when the Captain announced that the crew had agreed to work well beyond their stipulated shifts and in what is meant to be their rest period (with official dispensation) to try and get us all home. As families across India mourn — a father who lost both his daughters, a husband who came home with his wife's ashes, a couple who posted a last selfie only to go down with the plane — the rest of us should show humility, and some gratitude and grace. Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and author. The views expressed are personal.
Time of India
39 minutes ago
- Time of India
Minor girl's plaint: HC directs social media platforms to remove abusive video
Kochi: High court has directed social media platforms, including Facebook , YouTube and Instagram, to remove an allegedly manipulated video of a minor girl that was circulated with vulgar and abusive phrases intended to ridicule her. Justice N Nagaresh issued the interim order in a petition filed by the 14-year-old girl through her mother, seeking stringent action against the offenders. The case stems from an incident where the girl gave her comments to online channels outside a theatre after watching a movie. According to the petitioner, the video of her review was later altered by inserting mocking background music, sarcastic voice filters and sexually suggestive or deeply insulting phrases. The manipulated content was widely shared by various social media accounts. The girl came to know about the video only after her classmates and teachers brought it to her attention. Despite approaching the police for the removal of the video and action against those responsible, no effective steps were taken, she said. In her petition, the girl sought an interim direction to compel social media platforms to deploy AI-based content recognition and automated filtering tools to detect and remove the abusive video. After considering the matter, the court allowed the interim prayer and directed urgent notices to be issued to Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. The case has been posted for July 8. Follow more information on Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad here . Get real-time live updates on rescue operations and check full list of passengers onboard AI 171 .
India Today
42 minutes ago
- India Today
Fact Check: Old clip of Iranian attack on Israel FALSELY shared as Tel Aviv hitting Tehran
Early on June 13, Israel carried out a series of massive airstrikes on Iran. It reportedly targeted sites linked to Iran's nuclear enrichment program and killed several top nuclear scientists and military its aftermath, a video allegedly showing a barrage of missiles hitting the Iranian capital, Tehran, was widely shared online. Sharing this video, a Facebook user wrote, 'Israel is currently targeting residential addresses of top political and military figures in Tehran, as well as Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities. National emergency declared in Israel.'advertisement India Today Fact Check found that, contrary to the claims, this old video shows an Iranian missile attack on Israel's Nevatim PROBEReverse-searching keyframes from the viral clip led us to the same video uploaded to DD India's YouTube channel on October 2, 2024. The video was titled: 'Iranian missiles targeting the Nevatim airbase in the Negev Desert.' This means that the video is not recent at all. This video was also shared on Facebook on October 2, 2024, by All India Radio News — its caption calling this Iran's massive missile attack on Israel. As per the post, the attack was in response to the killings of senior Hezbollah and Hamas officials. We also found this video on several Iranian websites, which noted this was the country's attack on Israel's Nevatim air public broadcaster TRT World shared a similar clip on its YouTube channel on October 1, 2024. The video's description stated: 'Iranian missiles have struck Israel's Nevatim Airbase near Beersheva (Bir al-Sabi) after Tehran launched a salvo of rockets in retaliation for Israel's raids in Lebanon.' We found several news reports published in October 2024 about Iran targeting key Israeli military facilities, including their strategically important Nevatim Airbase. Despite the strikes, Israel said the targeted airbases remained fully operational as no aircraft, weapons, or personnel were while visuals of the recent Israeli attack on Iran have also surfaced online, we did not find any clips that matched the viral it's clear that the viral video does not show Israel's recent attack on InMust Watch Want to send us something for verification? Please share it on our at 73 7000 7000 You can also send us an email at factcheck@
