Proxy Violence And Manufactured Blame: Pakistan's Anti-India Play In Bangladesh

Decoding the attack on Inqilab Moncho's Sharif Osman Hadi: Plausible deniability, ISI proxy tactics, and the rising "India Out" narrative in post-Hasina Dhaka.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is increasingly being accused of engineering the shooting of Sharif Osman Hadi, convener of Bangladesh’s Inqilab Moncho, as part of a deliberate attempt to inflame anti-India sentiment during Dhaka’s fragile post-Hasina transition. The attack on December 12, 2025, in Dhaka’s Purana Paltan-where helmeted gunmen on a motorcycle fired at close range into Hadi’s moving rickshaw—follows a familiar pattern associated with ISI proxy operations: targeted violence designed to provoke unrest while preserving plausible deniability.

Bangladesh authorities were quick to attribute the attack to exiled Awami League elements allegedly operating from India. New Delhi rejected the charge outright, yet Dhaka doubled down, issuing demands for extradition. The speed with which blame was assigned, despite the absence of verified evidence, created a narrative environment that Pakistan has historically been adept at exploiting.

ISI’s Proxy Playbook Revisited

The ISI's record in Bangladesh is neither recent nor obscure. For decades, it has cultivated extremist and ideological proxies, including Jamaat-e-Islami–linked networks such as Islami Chhatra Shibir, to revive pro-Pakistan sentiment and weaken India’s regional influence. Following the political upheaval of 2024 and the removal of Sheikh Hasina, these networks found renewed space to operate.

Investigative reports and local security assessments indicate that ISI handlers exploited the ensuing instability, using informal routes and residual Pakistani-linked enclaves to funnel arms, coordinate arson attacks, and target Hindus, Awami League supporters, and critical infrastructure. The timing of Hadi’s shooting—just as Bangladesh moves toward the 2026 elections—fits this pattern. It allows Islamabad to redirect suspicion toward India while amplifying Hadi’s own anti-India rhetoric to maximise public outrage.

Notably, no verified evidence has been produced to link India to the attack. Preliminary investigative leads reportedly point to suspects fleeing within Bangladesh before any cross-border alerts were issued. Yet the interim government under Muhammad Yunus has shown little interest in pursuing these lines, instead promoting an external-conspiracy narrative. Such misdirection closely resembles past ISI false-flag tactics, where violence is framed as internal discord to mask external orchestration.

Post-1971 Reset: Yunus As An Enabler?

Relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh, deeply ruptured after the 1971 Liberation War, have warmed markedly under Yunus’s interim leadership. At the December 2024 D-8 Summit in Egypt, Yunus met Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and called for “moving past” unresolved 1971 issues—including war crimes accountability and asset division—in the name of trade and cultural cooperation. Bangladesh was described as a “brotherly” partner, a notable shift in tone.

By April 2025, senior-level talks in Dhaka—the first in 15 years—signalled a broader recalibration, even as Bangladesh’s long-standing demands for a formal apology and $4.5 billion in compensation remained unmet. Critics argue that this rapprochement has come at a strategic cost.

Under Yunus, cargo inspections on Pakistani shipments were reportedly relaxed, opening routes for arms, narcotics, and counterfeit currency. Security analysts have also raised concerns about renewed ISI operational presence in Dhaka, warning that Bangladesh risks becoming a permissive staging ground for activities aimed at India’s Northeast. This shift has strained India-Bangladesh relations further, feeding into “India Out” campaigns and intensifying resentment over Hasina’s continued exile in New Delhi.

Weaponising Hadi And The Street Narrative

Hadi himself has long been a vocal anti-Hasina agitator and a Dhaka-8 election aspirant, known for openly accusing India of election interference and cross-border killings. After the shooting, his rhetoric became a rallying point. Protests organised by Inqilab Moncho, including the December 15 gathering at Shaheed Minar, rapidly escalated in tone.

During one such protest, National Citizen Party leader Hasnat Abdullah warned that Bangladesh could “sever the Seven Sisters” from India if provoked, openly threatening to shelter separatist groups. The statement echoed earlier remarks by Yunus himself. In March 2025, he described Bangladesh as China’s “ocean gateway” to India’s landlocked Northeastern states—Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura—remarks widely read as strategic signalling rather than economic outreach.

Pakistan has leaned heavily into this narrative, portraying India as the destabilising force while positioning itself as a supportive partner. The broader objective appears clear: fuel communal polarisation, embolden militant actors, and revive long-standing separatist fantasies under the banner of “Seven Sisters to Seven Nations.”

Strategic Fallout For India's Northeast

The fallout from the Hadi shooting extends beyond Dhaka's streets. India’s Northeast remains geographically vulnerable, with Bangladesh occupying a critical maritime and transit position. Renewed Pakistan-Bangladesh alignment provides cover for infiltration routes, weapons trafficking, and ideological radicalisation, dovetailing with China’s wider regional strategy.

India’s decision in April 2025 to withdraw transshipment privileges for Bangladesh reflected growing concern over this trajectory. Yet Dhaka’s unsubstantiated accusations following the Hadi attack have only deepened mistrust and hardened positions.

The risks are regional. Unchecked ISI activity could trigger border tensions, empower extremist groups such as Hefazat-e-Islam, and further destabilise Bangladesh’s electoral process. India’s response will likely hinge on quiet intelligence coordination and sustained diplomacy aimed at exposing proxy manipulation rather than escalating rhetoric.

The shooting of Sharif Osman Hadi is unlikely to be an isolated criminal act. It bears the markings of a broader geopolitical design that exploits Bangladesh’s post-Hasina uncertainty to reopen old fault lines, undermine India’s standing, and reinsert Pakistan into Dhaka’s internal political calculus.

Muhammad Yunus’s outreach to Islamabad, combined with a permissive security environment, has created the conditions in which ISI influence can once again take root. If this convergence of political misjudgment in Dhaka and strategic intent in Rawalpindi continues unchecked, Bangladesh risks being drawn into a proxy role—one that threatens not only India’s Northeast, but wider regional stability.

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