There is a particular kind of dishonesty that does not require lying. It requires emphasis. It requires selection. It requires the strategic deployment of outrage — deep, genuine, well-sourced outrage — about one set of events, while maintaining total, deliberate silence about the events that made those events necessary. Bangladesh is watching this kind of dishonesty in real time.
Every BNP politician, every sympathetic commentator, every social media account that has emerged from the party’s considerable digital infrastructure since July 2024, uses the same word to describe the events of January 11, 2007. The word is “dark chapter.” Sometimes it is “black chapter.” Sometimes it is “constitutional crisis” or “military intervention” or simply “1/11,” spoken with the kind of revulsion usually reserved for natural disasters.
And then, in the same breath, they celebrate July 2024.
This is not a contradiction they acknowledge. It is not a tension they feel. It is, for them, perfectly consistent: January 11, 2007, when the military stepped in to prevent a rigged election and temporarily removed corrupt politicians from power, was a dark chapter. July-August 2024, when the military stepped in to remove a different set of corrupt politicians from power, was a glorious revolution. The difference, apparently, is who got removed.
This article is about what happens when a political movement seizes not just the institutions of governance — the courts, the anti-corruption commission, the security apparatus — but the narrative itself. What happens when the people writing the history books are the same people who have every reason to rewrite them.
The Two Interventions
Let’s start with what actually happened in both cases. Not the slogans. Not the spin. The facts.
January 11, 2007. Bangladesh was in crisis. The BNP-Jamaat coalition government had just completed five years of rule that Transparency International ranked as the most corrupt on Earth — five consecutive years, 2001 through 2005, dead last among all surveyed nations. The opposition Awami League had boycotted parliament for years. The caretaker government meant to oversee elections had been captured: the BNP-appointed president, Iajuddin Ahmed, had declared himself chief adviser of the caretaker government in violation of constitutional norms, stacking the election commission and the administration with BNP loyalists.
The voter list had been stuffed with 12.1 million fake names. The chief justice’s retirement age had been extended specifically to keep a BNP-friendly judge in place. The international community had withdrawn election observers. The United Nations had warned that Bangladesh’s peacekeeping participation was at risk. The country was heading toward an election that every credible observer — the UN, the EU, the US, the UK, domestic civil society — agreed would be a sham.
On January 11, the military intervened. President Iajuddin resigned as chief adviser, declared a state of emergency, and postponed the election. A caretaker government backed by the military took over. Over the next two years, it launched the most comprehensive anti-corruption drive in Bangladesh’s history, filing cases against over 300 politicians from both major parties, seizing properties, freezing bank accounts, and — briefly — making corruption consequential for people who had operated with total impunity for decades.
That is what BNP calls a “dark chapter.”
July-August 2024. Bangladesh was again in crisis. The Awami League government under Sheikh Hasina had become increasingly authoritarian — rigging elections, disappearing opponents, crushing dissent. Student protests erupted over government job quotas. The government responded with lethal force, killing hundreds. The military stepped in. Sheikh Hasina fled. An interim government was installed. The parallel to 1/11 was obvious and immediate.
That is what BNP calls a “glorious revolution.”
The structural similarities are impossible to miss. In both cases, a civilian government had lost legitimacy. In both cases, the military intervened to prevent further deterioration. In both cases, an unelected caretaker administration replaced the elected government. In both cases, the intervention was welcomed by significant portions of the population who had been suffering under the previous regime.
But in BNP’s telling, only one of these was legitimate. And the difference, once again, is who was in power when the military showed up.
The Rehabilitation Machine
Since taking power in February 2026, BNP has not merely reversed the legal consequences of 1/11. It has begun a comprehensive rehabilitation of everyone who was held accountable during that period, and a systematic erasure of the reasons they were held accountable in the first place.
Consider the scope:
Tarique Rahman — described by US diplomats as a “symbol of kleptocratic government,” convicted of money laundering, sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy to assassinate the opposition leader with military-grade grenades. He is now the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Eighty-four cases, all dismissed or acquitted. His return from exile in London was treated as a homecoming. His conviction for the grenade attack that killed 24 people was overturned in December 2024 — along with every other conviction in that case, including the death sentences of those who planned the attack from inside the government.
Lutfozzaman Babar — the State Minister for Home Affairs who provided “administrative support” for the August 21 grenade attack, according to the 2018 trial verdict. Sentenced to death. Acquitted in December 2024. His role in the arms haul case — the largest weapons smuggling operation in Bangladesh’s history, with 4,930 guns and 27,020 grenades — was also acquitted.
Khaleda Zia — convicted of embezzling from an orphanage trust. Sentenced to 10 years. Acquitted in January 2025. She died in December 2025, and is now being memorialized as a freedom fighter and democratic icon. The orphan trust money — the funds meant for children who had lost their parents — has never been recovered.
Shamim Iskander — Khaleda Zia’s brother, who nearly bankrupted Biman Bangladesh Airlines through corruption, who was charged with amassing wealth beyond known sources. His case was discharged in March 2025. In March 2026, he sat in the VIP gallery at the maiden session of the 13th Parliament. From accused to honored guest in under a year.
These are not small cases. These are not technicalities. These are the most significant corruption and criminal cases in Bangladesh’s democratic history, involving the highest levels of government, state security apparatus, and documented international criminal networks. The August 21 grenade attack alone involved military-grade weapons, a conspiracy that reached into the prime minister’s office, and 24 deaths. The Chittagong arms haul involved enough weaponry to equip a small army. The money laundering involved US$2.5 million in confirmed transfers through Singapore banks, investigated by the FBI.
Every single one of these cases — every conviction, every death sentence, every piece of evidence gathered over years of investigation and trial — has been wiped clean. Not through new evidence. Not through appeals that demonstrated factual innocence. Through a political transition that placed the convicted and the accused in positions of power over the institutions that convicted them.
The Narrative Engineers
The legal rehabilitation is only half the project. The other half is narrative.
Bangladesh Untold has previously documented the role of Fasbir Iskander — Shamim Iskander’s son, operating from London under the handle @fbeer21 — as the founder of “The Front Page,” a digital media outlet that functions as a BNP-aligned propaganda machine. But Fasbir is one node in a much larger network.
Since BNP’s return to power, a coordinated effort has emerged across social media, party-affiliated outlets, and even mainstream Bangla-language news platforms to reframe the entire 2001-2006 period. The narrative has several components:
First, the BNP years were a golden age of development. This is the claim that appears most frequently in BNP’s own communications and in sympathetic media. The infrastructure projects. The GDP growth. The “development first” messaging that BNP deployed during the 2026 election campaign. What is omitted from this narrative: Bangladesh was ranked the most corrupt country on Earth for five consecutive years during this “golden age.” The infrastructure projects were vectors for embezzlement — the “Khamba Tarique” scandal, where electric poles were installed without connecting them to any functioning grid, became a national symbol of what “development” actually meant under BNP rule. The GDP growth that BNP claims credit for was accompanied by capital flight, money laundering, and the systematic destruction of institutions.
Second, 1/11 was purely a power grab by the military. This framing strips the intervention of all context. It treats January 11, 2007 as though it happened in a vacuum — as though the military simply decided, one day, to take over. What it erases: the rigged voter list with 12.1 million fake entries. The extended chief justice term. The international community refusing to observe. The UN peacekeeping threat. The opposition boycott. The total collapse of any credible path to a legitimate election. The military did not intervene because it wanted power. It intervened because the alternative was a sham election that would have produced a government with no domestic or international legitimacy — a government that would have owed its existence entirely to fraud.
Third, all cases from the 1/11 era were politically motivated. This is the most consequential claim, because it is the one that justifies every acquittal. If every case was political persecution, then every acquittal is justice. The problem with this claim is that it requires you to believe that the FBI was politically motivated. That Singapore’s courts were politically motivated. That Transparency International was politically motivated. That Human Rights Watch was politically motivated. That the International Crisis Group was politically motivated. That the US State Department, which imposed sanctions on RAB and described Tarique Rahman as a “symbol of kleptocratic government” in diplomatic cables, was engaged in a Bangladeshi domestic political vendetta. It requires you to believe that every independent international institution that documented BNP-era corruption and human rights abuses was part of a conspiracy against one political party.
This is not a fringe position in BNP’s current discourse. It is the mainstream position. It is what senior party leaders say on television. It is what party-affiliated social media accounts amplify daily. It is what the rehabilitation of convicted criminals depends on: if the cases were all fake, then the people who were convicted are all victims, and their return to power is not corruption — it is vindication.
The Language of Erasure
What makes narrative control so effective is not just what is said. It is what is not said. The language of rehabilitation requires a corresponding language of erasure — the careful, systematic removal of facts from public discourse.
Here is what BNP’s current narrative does not include:
It does not mention that 13 military-grade Arges grenades were thrown into a crowd of 20,000 people on August 21, 2004, killing 24 and injuring over 500. It does not mention that the planning meetings were held at Hawa Bhaban, Tarique Rahman’s office. It does not mention that the Home Minister, the PM’s Political Secretary, the heads of both intelligence agencies, and a sitting minister’s brother were all convicted for their roles. It does not mention that the crime scene was washed with detergent while victims were still dying. It does not mention that an innocent man was tortured into confessing to cover up the real perpetrators.
It does not mention that Bangladesh was ranked the most corrupt country in the world for five consecutive years under BNP rule. It does not mention the 12.1 million fake voters added to the electoral rolls. It does not mention that 4,930 guns and 27,020 grenades were seized in a single shipment at Chittagong, with the involvement of the country’s intelligence chiefs. It does not mention that 18,000 rapes were documented against Hindu women in the aftermath of the 2001 election, by a judicial inquiry commission that identified 25 BNP-Jamaat MPs as orchestrators.
It does not mention Operation Clean Heart, in which 44 people died in military custody, after which the government passed an indemnity law making it illegal to prosecute the people who killed them. It does not mention RAB’s 600+ extrajudicial killings, carried out under BNP’s watch, for which the United States later imposed sanctions. It does not mention the Shamsunnahar Hall raid, where 200 female university students were dragged from their beds and beaten by police, after which the Home Minister who ordered the raid was shielded and the vice-chancellor who tried to stop it was forced to resign.
These are not minor details. These are the defining events of a five-year period during which BNP governed Bangladesh. They are documented by courts, by international organizations, by Bangladeshi civil society, by the United States government, by Transparency International, by Human Rights Watch, by the International Crisis Group, by Amnesty International, and by the United Nations. They are part of the permanent record. They cannot be erased by acquittals or by narrative.
But they can be erased from public discourse. And that is what is happening.
The Double Standard in Plain Sight
The most revealing aspect of BNP’s narrative project is not what they say about the past. It is the double standard they apply in the present.
When the Awami League government filed cases against BNP leaders, BNP called it political persecution. They were right — many of those cases were politically motivated. When BNP’s government acquits its own leaders of every charge, including murder, arms trafficking, and money laundering, while filing over 650 cases against a single opposition leader, BNP calls it justice.
When the Awami League used the Anti-Corruption Commission against opposition figures, BNP called it institutional capture. They were right — the ACC was weaponized. When BNP appoints its own loyalists to the ACC commission, withdraws 23,865 cases against its own members, and directs the apparatus against the opposition, they call it reform.
When Sheikh Hasina’s government extended the chief justice’s retirement age to keep a friendly judge in place, BNP called it constitutional manipulation. They were right. When BNP punishes 28 judges for posting on Facebook about judicial independence and repeals the constitutional safeguards that protect the courts, they call it accountability.
When the Awami League government passed the Digital Security Act to suppress criticism, BNP called it censorship. They were right. When BNP bans the Awami League — Bangladesh’s oldest political party — under anti-terrorism law, they call it protecting democracy.
When the military intervened on January 11, 2007 to prevent a rigged election, BNP called it a dark chapter. When the military intervened in July 2024 to remove the Awami League, BNP called it a people’s revolution.
Every single position BNP took in opposition, they have reversed in power. Not because they changed their minds about whether the underlying actions were wrong. They reversed because the underlying actions are now being done to their opponents instead of to them. The principle — that politicized justice is wrong, that institutional capture is wrong, that military intervention is wrong — was never the principle. The principle was always: when it happens to us, it’s wrong. When we do it, it’s necessary.
What July 2024 and January 2007 Share
There is a legitimate argument that military intervention is sometimes justified. Bangladesh Untold has made that argument. When a government has lost all legitimacy, when elections are a farce, when institutions have been captured, when civil society has been silenced — when the democratic process itself has been hollowed out to the point where it can no longer self-correct — intervention from outside the political system may be the only mechanism for restoring any possibility of accountability.
The argument for 1/11 is that the BNP government had made a fair election impossible. The voter rolls were fraudulent. The election commission was stacked. The chief justice’s term had been manipulated. The opposition had been driven from parliament. The international community had withdrawn its observers. There was no democratic path to correcting the situation, because the BNP government had systematically closed every democratic path.
The argument for July 2024 is that the Awami League government had made democratic opposition impossible. Elections had been rigged. Dissent had been criminalized. Opponents had been disappeared. Student protesters had been shot. The democratic process had been hollowed out to the point where protest — and ultimately military intervention — was the only remaining option.
Both arguments are, on their own terms, defensible. The problem is that BNP only accepts one of them. They accept the argument for July 2024 because it removed their opponents. They reject the argument for January 2007 because it removed them.
There is a word for a principle that only applies when it benefits you. That word is not “principle.” It is “convenience.”
The Stakes
Why does any of this matter? Because history is not just about the past. It is about what the present is allowed to remember, and what it is required to forget.
When a government rehabilitates every person convicted of corruption, murder, and arms trafficking — not through new evidence or judicial review, but through a political transition that places the convicted above the courts that convicted them — it sends a message. The message is: there are no consequences. Not because the evidence was wrong. Not because the trials were unfair. But because the people who were convicted now control the mechanisms that convicted them.
When a government bans its opposition party under anti-terrorism law, while simultaneously withdrawing 23,865 cases against its own members and acquitting every conviction against its leadership, it sends a message. The message is: the law applies to them, not to us.
When a government rewrites the history of its own period in power — erasing the corruption rankings, the grenade attacks, the arms hauls, the custodial killings, the rapes, the embezzlement from orphan trusts, the money laundering, the FBI investigations, the Singapore court convictions, the US diplomatic cables describing its leader as a “symbol of kleptocratic government” — it sends a message. The message is: reality is what we say it is.
This is not about 1/11. This is not about whether the caretaker government was right or wrong, justified or excessive. Reasonable people can disagree about the scope and methods of the 1/11 intervention. What is not reasonable — what is fundamentally dishonest — is celebrating one military intervention while condemning another, when the only relevant difference is which party was in power when it happened.
This is not about the Awami League. The Awami League’s record on democracy, human rights, and institutional independence was deeply flawed. Bangladesh Untold has documented those flaws extensively. The Awami League’s use of the ACC as a political weapon was real. The disappearances, the extrajudicial killings, the suppression of dissent — all documented, all real, all indefensible.
This is about a pattern. A pattern where every party that comes to power in Bangladesh uses the same institutions, in the same ways, against the same opponents, and then claims moral authority when those same institutions are turned against them. The Awami League did it. BNP is doing it now. The institutions have not changed. The direction they point has.
The history that BNP is trying to write — the history where 2001-2006 was a golden age, where 1/11 was an unprovoked atrocity, where all convictions were political persecution, and where July 2024 was a pure democratic revolution — is not history. It is public relations. And public relations, no matter how skillfully executed, cannot survive contact with the documentary record.
The documentary record shows a government that ranked as the most corrupt on Earth for five consecutive years. It shows military-grade grenades thrown from rooftops into a political rally with the assistance of the home minister and the intelligence services. It shows 4,930 guns and 27,020 grenades smuggled through a government jetty. It shows 18,000 documented rapes. It shows 44 people killed in military custody. It shows 600+ extrajudicial killings. It shows money laundering confirmed by the FBI and the Singapore courts. It shows a prime minister’s son operating a parallel government from an office called Hawa Bhaban, described by US diplomats as a center of kleptocratic governance.
That record exists. It is in court verdicts, in diplomatic cables, in international reports, in the archives of Transparency International, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the International Crisis Group. It is in the confessions of the people who carried out the attacks. It is in the financial records of the Singapore courts. It is in the sanctions list of the United States Treasury Department.
No amount of narrative engineering can make it disappear. But narrative engineering can make a population forget that it exists. That is the project. That is what is happening right now. And that is why this article exists — not to relitigate 1/11, but to insist that the record is not negotiable.
The people who are writing the history books are the people who have the most to gain from rewriting them. The rest of us have only the documents. The documents are enough. But only if we remember that they exist.
Bangladesh Untold documents what the record shows. Every source in this article is independently verifiable. This is part of our ongoing Series 9: BNP 2026 = BAL 2.0? Previous articles in this series have documented institutional capture, political persecution, press freedom, the security apparatus, and the Anti-Corruption Commission. The full series is available at bangladeshuntold.org.
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