The Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka has launched a WhatsApp group which includes representatives of Bangladesh's political parties, civil society icons, academics and the media to sow discord between New Delhi and Dhaka.
According to the website of the Bangladesh daily Prothomo Alo, Pakistan's intelligence agency (ISI) has been running various campaigns from behind the scenes by capitalizing on religion through the Pakistan’s Dhaka mission’s WhatsApp group.
According to the report, citing its intelligence sources, the Pak spy agency, the Inter Services Intelligence ( ISI) has been running various campaigns from behind the scenes to spread misinformation as well as fake news.
The report said that the Press secretary of the Pakistan’s Dhaka mission is using the social media platform to spread a propaganda war against India and Bangladesh with the help of local hardliner Islamist militant organisations, such as the Hefazat-e-Islam.
According to the Bangladesh intelligence sources, the ISI has been funding Hifazat-e-Islam as well as few more militant groups in the country with the nefarious plot of unseating Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Dhaka in March, Hifazat-e-Islam, backed by the ISI and other radical organisations had launched violent anti-Modi protests. It was the ISI who asked Hefazat leaders to mobilise other radical organisations such as the Hizbut Tahrir and Jamaatul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB), with the goal of spreading countrywide protests against Modi’s visit. In fact, the Bangladesh Parliament or Jatiyo Sangsad blamed the Pakistani High Commission in Dhaka and ISI for these protests.
Pak 🇵🇰 HC #Dhaka’s #SecretFunding for @HIBofficial @Hefazot to protest against India 🇮🇳 & its PM @narendramodi. We, #secular & #democratic people of #Bangladesh condemn this attempt by Pak agency #ISI. #Shame on @GovtofPakistan, protector of #Terrorists around the globe. pic.twitter.com/Yaax20a23E
— Barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh (@sheikhTaposh) March 20, 2021
Such activities of ISI in Bangladesh are not new. Consequently, the Sheikh Hasina government has launched a fierce campaign against the ISI funded terror groups. In the last five years, Hasina’s government expelled three diplomats and one non-diplomatic staff from the country after they were found funding terror outfits. In 2015, Farina Arshad, second secretary (political) at the Pakistan High Commission in Bangladesh was asked to leave the country within 48 hours after one arrested militant leader of Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) confessed that she was his “handler”.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has always underlined her government's "zero-tolerance" policy to counter violent extremism. She has also positioned her party the Awami League as a secular nationalist party, emphasising on its prosecution and execution of hardline Jamaat-e-Islami leaders who were found guilty of war crimes during the Liberation war in 1971.
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