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Swarajya Exclusive: How Bangladesh Army Chief Foiled Yunus' Plans To Trigger Skirmishes With India
- Yunus reckoned that engineering small skirmishes along the border with India would divert attention away from the deeply troubled domestic situation and rally the masses behind him.
Mohammad Yunus (Left) and Bangladesh Army Chief General Waker-uz-Zaman (Right).
Faced with mounting challenges on many fronts, the head of Bangladesh’s interim government, Mohammad Yunus, hatched a sinister plot early last month to divert attention from all his domestic troubles.
According to Yunus’ calculations, a faceoff with India, albeit a limited one and confined to the Indo-Bangladesh border, would dispel all his troubles and also allow him to continue holding onto power by ignoring calls for early elections.
He reckoned that all stakeholders, including the masses, would cast aside their differences in the spirit of nationalism and rally behind him in the planned faceoff with India.
According to top sources in the Bangladesh Army and within the government, Yunus hatched this plan in consultation with the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and some leaders of the newly formed Jatiyo Nagorik Party (or National Citizens’ Party).
The NCP, also known as the ‘king’s party’ in Bangladesh since it has Yunus’ blessings and strong support, was formed in February this year by leaders of the Anti-Discrimination Students’ Movement (ADSM) that had spearheaded the uprising against Sheikh Hasina.
Yunus is said to have discussed and given final touches to the plan in close consultation with the National Security Advisor (NSA) Khalilur Rahman and with the army’s Quarter-Master General (QMG), Lieutenant General Mohammad Faizur Rahman, around the time India had launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ against Pakistan. The QMG is one of the very few in the top echelons of the army who is a staunch Islamist and opposed to the army chief.
Lt Gen Rahman, also known to be close to Pakistan’s ISI, had led a failed attempt to overthrow the army chief in March this year (read this). Ever since then, he has been kept under close watch and has virtually no access to the army chief.
That’s why a Colonel-ranked officer attached to the 46th Independent Infantry Brigade, also called the ‘Dhaka Brigade’, which is located inside Dhaka Cantonment and is under the direct command of the Army headquarters, was tasked with laying out the plan before the army chief.
This Colonel, who is suspected to be close to a couple of former ADSM leaders who are now part of the interim government, has cordial ties with senior staff officers at the army headquarters.
The proposed plot
With India’s attention focused on Pakistan, Yunus and his associates reckoned that their neighbour would not be able to pay much attention to provocations on the Indo-Bangladesh border.
“The plan was to get the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) to adopt an overtly aggressive stance along the border and, thus, trigger a skirmish with India’s Border Security Force (BSF). The plan also involved deploying army units at some rear areas along the border to provide backup for BGB troops,” a senior staff officer at Dhaka Cantonment told Swarajya.
The BGB had, soon after the change of guard in Dhaka in early August last year, adopted a very combative stance along the international border. It had started objecting to the erection of fences and even other constructions on the Indian side of the border.
One such act by the BGB, which had caused a lot of outrage, took place in early December last year when BGB troops crossed a river that delineated the Indo-Bangladesh border to enter Indian territory and try to stop the renovation of a mandir in Assam’s Sribhumi district. (Read this)
Senior BSF officers at the force’s South Bengal frontier headquarters in Kolkata told Swarajya that at many vulnerable and porous stretches of the border, the BGB had, between August last year and mid-February this year, tried to protect and help Bangladeshi criminals breach the border.
“However, they (the BGB) dropped the aggressive stance from mid-February this year,” the BSF officer said.
That was because the Bangladesh army chief reportedly asked BGB director general, Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, to dial down and discard the border force’s combative stance.
The army chief, General Waker-uz-Zaman, is said to have reprimanded the BGB director general for egging his troops to adopt a combative stance.
The BGB chief reportedly told General Waker-uz-Zaman that he had received verbal instructions from ‘Jamuna’, a complex that serves as the residence-cum-office of the interim government’s chief advisor (Mohammad Yunus).
Yunus wanted the BGB to get combative once again and provoke the BSF into a series of small skirmishes. “Yunus’ calculation was that such skirmishes would be leveraged by sections of hyper-nationalist Bangladeshi media to trigger public outrage and nationalistic fervour. Yunus and his colleagues would fuel that nationalist fervour through their jingoism and aggressive statements. That would lead to the nation rallying behind Yunus and all his domestic troubles being swept away,” retired Brigadier General Altaf Hussain, who is close to the present army leadership, told Swarajya.
The army’s support was critical for the success of this plan. That’s because in the case of any skirmish between the BGB and BSF getting out of hand, the Bangladesh army troops deployed close to the border would be able to get to the aid of the BGB. The enhanced presence of the Bangladesh army near the border would act as a deterrence to the BSF and prevent the latter from upping the ante.
“Without the army acting as its backup, the BGB would not have mustered the courage to get too aggressive with the BSF. The BSF exercises restraint, but only up to a point. Crossing the red line, which Yunus wanted the BGB to do, would have invited strong retaliation from the BSF. That’s why the army’s presence was being sought in order to act as a deterrent for the BSF from retaliating strongly against the BGB,” said Brig Gen (retired) Hussain.
The Colonel in the Dhaka Brigade was tasked with discussing the plan with some senior officers at Dhaka Cantonment and getting their approval. It was also decided that NSA Khalilur Rahman, as well as leaders of the Jamaat, would reach out to senior army officers and win over their support for the plan.
“It is well known that most of the senior officers of the Bangladesh army, from the rank of Brigadier Generals upwards, are very secular and professional. Most are also anti-Jamaat and anti-Islamist. But a section of the junior and mid-ranking officers — captains, majors, lieutenant colonels and a few colonels — are Islamists. The plan was to garner support for the plan from mid-ranking officers in Dhaka Cantonment and, through them, apply pressure on the senior officers to approve the plan. All this was to have been done within a short period of just a couple of days,” said the senior staff officer at the army headquarters.
Plan foiled by army chief
“General Waker-uz-Zaman had a quick discussion with his senior colleagues, including the chief of general staff, Lt Gen Mizanur Rahman Shamim, and the other two service chiefs, Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood Khan and Admiral Mohammad Nazmul Hasan. Everyone opposed Yunus’ plan very strongly,” said the senior staff officer at the Army HQs.
The army chief then sent word to Yunus, as well as the NSA, that the plan is a foolhardy one and would never work. He said he was strongly opposed to creating tensions along the border with India and provoking India.
General Waker-uz-Zaman made it very clear to the NSA and Yunus that it would be dangerous to play a game of brinkmanship with India since any misadventure along the border could easily spiral out of control. He said the Bangladesh army did not have the capacity, or the inclination, to get involved in hostilities with India.
The Bangladesh army chief also said that not only would he not deploy any troops along the border, he was also ordering the BGB director general to desist from taking any orders directly from anyone (meaning the NSA or Yunus).
General Waker-uz-Zaman communicated to Yunus and the NSA that BGB functions as an auxiliary force of the army, and he, being the army chief, is the sole authority who issues directives to the BGB. The BGB is answerable only to him, the army chief said.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leadership also got to know of Yunus’ plans. Realising the sinister intent behind it, the BNP leadership quickly told Yunus that the party would strongly oppose the plan and launch a public campaign against it.
A member of the BNP’s national standing committee who did not want to be named told Swarajya that his party also counselled Yunus that the plan was a dangerous one and could boomerang on Bangladesh.
“He (Yunus) was told point blank that instead of creating more trouble for the country, he should devote his energy to solving the present crises within the country,” the BNP leader said.
Realising that his plans to trigger a misadventure along the Indo-Bangladesh border were being strongly opposed by many, including the army that was key to its implementation, Yunus backed down and shelved the plan.
However, BNP leaders and retired army officers caution that if domestic troubles mount for Yunus, he may try to revive the plot.
“General Waker-uz-Zaman is the only bulwark against this diabolic plan. He is facing a lot of pressure and threats from within the army. If he stays, the plan will never fructify. If he goes, Yunus will not waste any time in trying to implement it,” said a former Major General who commanded the 24 Infantry Division and was the area commander of Chittagong.
There is also the strong belief, both in the Indian and Bangladeshi intelligence establishments, that Yunus could have hatched the plan at the behest of Pakistan’s ISI which has expanded its footprints in Bangladesh of late.
It would suit Pakistan if Indian security forces had to commit attention and resources to the eastern front with Bangladesh. That would, Pakistan hopes, ease pressure on the western front.
Why Yunus hatched this plan
Trouble has been mounting for Yunus on the home front since early this year and has only become acute of late. Bangladesh’s honeymoon with Yunus is not only getting over very fast, but is slowly turning into bitterness.
On the political front, the BNP and other parties have upped the ante against Yunus over their demand for elections by the end of this year. Though the Jamaat and the Jatiyo Nagorik Party (JNP), as well as Islamists, are backing Yunus and are even demanding that he rule the country for a few more years, they have little public support.
Interestingly, recent surveys show that the beleaguered Awami League’s support base is still more or less intact at over 30%. Despite most of the top leadership of the party being in self-imposed exile or behind bars, there exists a huge grassroots support for the party that has been banned.
The rising crime graph — dacoities, abductions, killings, rapes and molestation of women, forcible occupation of properties, loot, etc have become common even in the capital city of Dhaka — has angered the people.
High inflation (about 10%) and the consequent increase in the prices of everything, including food and other essentials, has also fuelled public anger against Yunus.
Apart from the breakdown of law and order, the ineptitude of the ‘advisors’ (de facto ministers) who have zero experience in governance and are driven by their whims and fancies has led to complete paralysis in the administration.
Development works have come to a standstill, corruption and extortion have become rampant, the country’s finances are in a mess, its export earnings are heading south, industrial strife is increasing, and the country is brewing with resentment and rage.
Given this situation, Yunus reckoned that engineering small skirmishes along the border with India would divert attention away from the deeply troubled domestic situation, fuel nationalistic fervour, and rally the masses behind him.
Unfortunately for him, the sagacious army chief realised the folly of this plan and vetoed it.
