Opinion: Former Bangladesh spy chief's China visit: What it means for Dhaka and Delhi

India Today

7 hours ago

The former Bangladesh military intelligence chief's recent 12-day visit to China has raised alarm bells in New Delhi. Major-General (retired) Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury, who departed for China on June 6, returned to Dhaka on June 18. According to a Bangladeshi intelligence report this week, "His recent travel to China and return may warrant observation due to his past affiliations and the strategic sensitivity of the cases he was implicated in.' Sources also said that a senior national security official from the Yunus government is currently in China, having arrived there during Chowdhury's visit. advertisementRezzakul Haider Chowdhury, who has served as director-general of both the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence and the National Security Intelligence, was jailed during the Awami League regime for his alleged involvement in the smuggling of a huge consignment of weapons meant for rebel groups in Northeast India and Bangladesh through the Chittagong port in April 2004. He was also sentenced to death for the attempted assassination of then-opposition leader and later prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, in 2004, within three months of the Chittagong arms seizure. Several Awami League leaders and activists were killed in the grenade attack on a party rally in Dhaka, but Hasina miraculously escaped.
An ISI asset? Chowdhury is seen in New Delhi as a 'high-grade asset' of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, who reportedly has close links to Chinese intelligence as well. Both countries have backed rebel groups in Northeast India since the 1950s. advertisementUnited Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) military wing chief Paresh Baruah was also convicted in the Chittagong arms haul case after Bangladesh police seized 10 truckloads of weapons, including 4,930 firearms (mostly assault rifles), 27,020 grenades, 840 rocket launchers, 2,000 grenade launching tubes, 300 rockets, 6392 magazines, and 11,40,520 bullets, when the consignment was being offloaded from two ships at a jetty in Bangladesh's port city of Chittagong.The huge consignment of weapons, mostly manufactured by the Chinese ordnance behemoth Norinco Group, was loaded onto ships in the port of Beihai in China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in March 2004. More weapons of US- and Israeli-make were added to the consignment and transferred to two Bangladeshi vessels in the Thai port of Ranong and brought to Chittagong, where it was seized on the night of April 1, 2004. The weapons were meant for ULFA and other rebel groups in Northeast India, as well as Islamist terror groups like the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh. Chittagong arms haul case linkAfter the ouster of the Awami League government in August last year, the interim government headed by Muhammad Yunus released those convicted of trying to smuggle in the largest illegal arms consignment. On January 16 this year, the Bangladesh High Court acquitted six people convicted in the Chittagong arms haul case, including Chowdhury and former state minister for home affairs, Lutfur Zaman Babar. The state did not challenge these acquittals. The high court also reduced the sentences of five others, including that of ULFA leader Paresh Barua.advertisementBabar and Chowdhury were both very close to Bangladesh Nationalist Party acting chairperson Tarique Rahman, whose mother, Begum Khaleda Zia, was prime minister at the time of the massive arms seizure in Chittagong. Yunus recently met Tarique Rahman in London and expressed his satisfaction about the meeting regarding the future roadmap for Bangladesh.Among those acquitted were the late Matiur Rahman Nizami, former industries minister and Jamaat-e-Islami leader, Mohsin Uddin Talukder, the former managing director of the state-run Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited, KM Enamul Haque, its former general manager, and Nurul Amin, former additional secretary in the industries ministry.Fourteen individuals were initially sentenced in the arms smuggling case. The court abated the appeals of Brigadier General (retd.) Abdur Rahim, the former director general of National Security Intelligence, labour supplier Deen Muhammad, and Haji Sobhan, a trawler owner, because all of them are now dead. The sentences of five others were also reduced. advertisementBaruah's sentence reducedParesh Baruah's life imprisonment sentence was reduced to 14 years. The ULFA leader is reportedly holed up in a clandestine location on the China-Myanmar border. Additionally, the sentences of four other accused have been reduced to 10 years each. These are Akbar Hossain Khan, a former NSI field officer, Major (retd.) Liaquat Hossain, the former deputy director of the NSI, Wing Commander (retd.) Sahab Uddin Ahmed, and former NSI director Hafizur Rahman.Indian intelligence officials said in 2004 that the Chittagong police were not informed about the attempt to bring in such a huge quantity of weapons by rogue elements in the Bangladeshi 'deep state', who were backing Northeast Indian rebel groups and Islamist radicals in Bangladesh. So, when they were informed about the unloading of the weapons consignment by their sources at the Chittagong docks, they rushed in to effect the seizure. But the cases were cold-stored and only made headway after the Awami League came to power in 2009. In January 2014, the Chittagong Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court and Special Tribunal-1 sentenced 14 individuals to death, including Babar, Nizami, and Baruah, in the attempted assassination case. In a separate case under the Arms Act, they also received life sentences for their involvement in the smuggling case. advertisementConcerns for India Indian security circles seem worried over these acquittals, and also the release of scores of known Islamist terror leaders like Jashimuddin Rahmani, the chief of the Ansarullah Bangla Team. "These elements are close to Pakistan's ISI and could well be now used to foment trouble in India's eastern states. After Operation Sindoor, the ISI and Pakistan Army could use their Bangladesh assets to strike with maximum deniability,' said a senior Indian intelligence official on condition of anonymity. "Islamabad would be less than bothered and may actually welcome the possible worsening of India-Bangladesh relations.'India has also not taken kindly to Yunus' recent reference to India's Northeast as a landlocked region dependent on sea access on Bangladesh, a situation that the Nobel laureate said presented a great opportunity for the Chinese economy. His comments were made during a visit to China. Yunus again suggested drawing Northeast India into a regional grouping involving Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, which drew a sharp riposte from Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar.(Writer is a former BBC and Reuters correspondent and author who has worked in Bangladesh as a senior editor with bdnews24.com)advertisement(View Expressed in this opinion piece are those of the Author)