Former B'desh army officer sparks controversy with call to occupy NE

Guwahati, May 2: In a troubling escalation of rhetoric amid rising India-Pakistan tensions, a retired Bangladesh army officer, Maj Gen (retired) ALM Fazlur Rahman, reportedly close to interim chief advisor Muhammad Yunus, has suggested that Bangladesh should consider “occupying” India’s Northeast in coordination with China if New Delhi initiates military action against Pakistan.

“If India attacks Pakistan, Bangladesh must move to occupy the seven north-eastern states of India,” Rahman wrote in Bengali on a famous social media platform. He called for discussions on joint military cooperation with China.

This statement comes in the wake of the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which killed 26 people and has intensified concerns in diplomatic and strategic circles.

While this extreme view does not represent the official stance of the Bangladesh government, its timing and origin have raised eyebrows.

India-Pakistan relations have been severely strained since the Pahalgam attack, and at the same time, India-Bangladesh ties have also deteriorated since the exit of the pro-India Sheikh Hasina government.

Reports of rising violence against minorities, particularly Hindus, in Bangladesh have further fuelled the tension between the two nations.

Rahman’s remark follows Yunus’s recent visit to Beijing, where he described Bangladesh as the “only guardian of the ocean” for landlocked Northeast India.

He positioned Bangladesh as a strategic maritime gateway and invited China to play a deeper role in the region, signalling a potential shift in regional alliances.

Northeast, which shares borders with China, Myanmar, and Bangladesh, remains a strategically sensitive region from security standpoint.

While past decades saw insurgent groups operating from Bangladesh territory, such activities were curbed after decisive measures by the Hasina-led government post-2009.

The social media post of Maj Gen (retired) ALM Fazlur Rahman.