Top Bangladesh security official visits India for meetings

Maj Gen Kaiser Rashid Chowdhury, who was promoted and made head of Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) as part of major shake-up of Bangladesh Army’s hierarchy on Feb 22

India and Bangladesh have quietly begun rebuilding security ties, with a senior Bangladeshi military intelligence official visiting New Delhi late last month for meetings with National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and other interlocutors, people familiar with the matter said.

Chowdhury was also hosted for dinner by Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief Parag Jain. (Representative file photo)

Maj Gen Kaiser Rashid Chowdhury, who was promoted and made the head of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) as part of a major shake-up of the Bangladesh Army’s hierarchy on February 22, was in the Indian capital less than a week later for an annual security conclave held on the margins of the Raisina Dialogue, the people said on condition of anonymity.

Besides participating in the security conclave, which has been hosted by India’s National Security Council Secretariat since 2022, Chowdhury held bilateral meetings with Doval and the Director General of Military Intelligence, Lt Gen RS Raman. Chowdhury was also hosted for dinner by Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief Parag Jain, the people said.

There were no official readouts from the Indian side on the security conclave or Chowdhury’s bilateral meetings, the first such engagements between senior security officials since the government led by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman came to power in Dhaka following Bangladesh’s general election last month.

These meetings are being seen as part of the process of normalising bilateral relations following the unprecedented strains witnessed during the term of the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus. Chowdhury’s discussions with his Indian interlocutors are understood to have focused on revitalising channels of communication that had been largely dormant since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in August 2024 and steps aimed at ensuring that the territory of both countries is not used by interests that are inimical to the development of good relations.

On the Bangladesh side, Chowdhury’s visit was kept completely under wraps, with some reports even suggesting that he travelled to New Delhi for “medical reasons”. Reports in segments of the Bangladeshi media on Monday described the arrest in West Bengal of two Bangladeshi nationals in connection with the murder of radical student leader Sharif Osman Hadi as an outcome of the visit to India by a “senior DGFI official”.

People from both sides said the two countries are working on enhancing security relations but it would not be completely accurate to attribute the arrests to the DGFI chief’s visit. Bangladesh’s deputy high commission in Kolkata said in a statement that it was informed by Kolkata Police about the arrest of two Bangladeshi nationals – Faisal Karim Masud, 37, and Alamgir Hossain, 34 – and that it had sought consular access to them.

Reports in the Bangladeshi media, citing the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) directorate or the military’s media arm, said the arrests were made by Indian authorities based on intelligence information shared by Bangladesh. Masud and Hossain are among the main accused in the murder of Hadi, who died in a Singapore hospital on December 18, almost a week after he was shot in Dhaka.

Doval has played a key role in managing security and strategic relations with Bangladesh. He was in contact with his former Bangladeshi counterpart, Khalilur Rahman, who has been appointed foreign minister in the new Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government.

India also signalled its desire to quickly repair ties with the BNP when it became clear that the party was set to sweep Bangladesh’s election. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar met BNP chief Tarique Rahman when he travelled to Dhaka on December 31 last year to participate in the funeral of Rahman’s mother, former premier Khaleda Zia, and also handed over a letter from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India was represented at Rahman’s inauguration last month by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and foreign secretary Vikram Misri.