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A company with $100 in paid-up capital. No website. No track record. No experience in energy infrastructure. Yet it was chosen — over qualified international firms — to receive a stake in a $305 million government oil contract in Bangladesh.

This is not a hypothetical. It happened. It was documented. And the company had one thing the other bidders did not: a hidden connection to the man who controlled Bangladesh’s entire energy sector.

His name is Nasrul Hamid Bipu. For over a decade — from 2009 to 2024 — he served as Bangladesh’s State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources under the Awami League government. During that time, Bangladesh spent over Tk 1.66 trillion (approximately $15 billion USD) on energy imports. Nasrul Hamid was the gatekeeper for every major contract.

And hiding inside some of those contracts — holding shares, collecting commissions, absorbing millions — was a network of shell companies tied directly to his family.

How the Playbook Works: A Ghost Company in Singapore

In March 2021, the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) — the government’s sole petroleum import and distribution agency — signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a three-company consortium to build Bangladesh’s largest-ever LPG terminal at Matarbari deep-sea port.

The consortium was made up of:

• Marubeni Corporation — Japanese trading giant with $1+ billion in existing contracts from Nasrul Hamid’s ministry
• Vitol Asia — Singapore-based trading arm of Dutch-Swiss energy giant Vitol, previously fined $164 million by the US Department of Justice for bribing officials in Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico
• PowerCo International — a Bangladeshi company registered in Singapore with a paid-up capital of exactly $100

The deal: the consortium would build a one-million-tonne LPG terminal at a cost of $305 million on a Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) model. Vitol and PowerCo would together hold a 30% combined stake — meaning PowerCo, a company with $100 to its name, would theoretically need to contribute $45.75 million in capital.

PowerCo had no prior experience in energy infrastructure. No known track record in commodity trading. No public presence. When a journalist visited its head office in Banani, Dhaka, they found three employees — including a receptionist — who could not name their own managing director.

“He did not know about BPC’s decision. When asked about the company’s share and investment in the consortium, he sought more time to comment. He also failed to name the company’s managing director.”

— The Business Standard, February 2021, reporting on PowerCo’s Chief Operating Officer Murad Hassan

Industry insiders immediately flagged the absurdity: How does a company with $100 in capital hold a stake in a $305 million project?

The answer, as journalists would discover, was that PowerCo wasn’t there to provide capital. It was there to collect.

Follow the Ownership Documents

Registered with Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), PowerCo International listed its principal activities as “management consultancy services and wholesale trade in a variety of goods.” Its principal shareholder was one Md Kamruzzaman Chowdhury.

Investigators cross-referenced Kamruzzaman’s identity documents and social media. The finding: Kamruzzaman Chowdhury is the maternal uncle of Nasrul Hamid Bipu.

Netra News — a Bangladeshi investigative outlet — obtained a recorded conversation with Kamruzzaman, in which he openly admitted he had no idea what he had signed:

“They are my relatives. I am their maternal uncle. They asked me to sign [the documents], I signed. I didn’t even read closely what I was signing.”

“I don’t know the details. In fact, I don’t know anything. I was told, ‘You have some shares in this company, sign here’ — I signed. Then, they told me, ‘You no longer have shares, sign here’ — I signed. That’s it. I don’t know anything beyond that.”

— Kamruzzaman Chowdhury, in recorded conversation with Netra News

A classic frontman. Signed in, signed out. The real controlling interest remained hidden.

The company’s link to Nasrul Hamid ran even deeper. PowerCo’s alternative director listed in Singapore filings was Md Murad Hassan — who simultaneously served as CEO of Delco Business Associate Ltd, a sister concern of the Hamid Group, the family conglomerate of which Nasrul Hamid had previously served as Managing Director.

PowerCo’s managing director, Nabil Khan, was an Indian national running a Dubai-based investment company — and a Facebook friend of Nasrul Hamid’s younger brother, Enthekhabul Hamid.

In total, the web connecting PowerCo to the minister controlling the contract included:

• His maternal uncle as founding shareholder (later swapped out)
• A CEO who simultaneously ran his family’s business
• A managing director who was a personal friend of his brother
• No declared disclosure of any conflict of interest

When the Story Broke — The Minister’s Response Was Threats

In February 2021, a month before the BPC-PowerCo MoU was formally signed, The Business Standard (TBS) published a report headlined: “$100 co, disputed Vitol chosen for largest LPG terminal.”

The report did not directly name Nasrul Hamid. It didn’t need to. The minister clearly understood what it meant.

His response was to mount intense pressure on TBS to unpublish the article — and to harass the journalist who wrote it, labelling him a “Shibir man” (a deeply damaging accusation in Bangladesh, implying affiliation with Islamist militants).

The reporter’s professional reputation was attacked. The story was suppressed under pressure. The MoU was signed one month later anyway.

This is how Bangladesh’s energy sector corruption operated for fifteen years: not in secret back rooms, but in the open — because the people doing the exposing could be silenced, threatened, and professionally destroyed.

The Broader Syndicate: Vitol, Gunvor, and the LNG Pipeline

PowerCo was not an isolated incident. It was part of a systematic pattern across Bangladesh’s entire fuel import infrastructure.

Bangladesh began importing LNG (liquefied natural gas) from the spot market in 2020. From that point until 2024, four companies dominated virtually all spot-market LNG contracts:

1. Vitol Asia (Singapore) — 30 of 74 cargoes procured as of October 2024
2. Gunvor Singapore — 15 cargoes
3. TotalEnergies (Switzerland) — 14 cargoes
4. Excelerate Energy (USA) — 10 cargoes

Vitol and Gunvor alone supplied over 60% of all LNG to Bangladesh during this period.

Both companies have been sanctioned by the United States Department of Justice for bribery:

• Vitol: Fined $130 million in 2013 and a further $164 million in December 2020 for bribing officials in Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico
• Gunvor: Fined $660 million in March 2024 for securing contracts in Ecuador with bribes

Both companies operated in Bangladesh through a single local representative: Ejazur Rahman. The same man served as the Bangladesh representative for both Vitol Asia and Gunvor — the two suppliers that dominated the market. Petrobangla sources noted that Ejazur’s commercial office was located directly opposite Petrobangla’s own headquarters.

According to Prothom Alo investigations, Ejazur reportedly went into hiding after the August 2024 fall of the Awami League government. He could not be reached for comment.

All roads led to the same minister. All commissions passed through the same network. All accountability was absent.

The Scale: Tk 1.66 Trillion Over Six Years

To understand the magnitude of what was happening, consider the numbers:

This is Bangladesh’s largest single category of government expenditure. It dwarfs education, health, and infrastructure combined. And for fifteen years, the allocation of these contracts ran through a single political gatekeeper and his family network.

Bonikbarta reported in January 2026 that industry insiders believe “large sums were paid as kickbacks under the guise of commissions or fees, with much of the money settled overseas.”

After the Revolution: Did Anything Change?

Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh on August 5, 2024 following a student-led mass uprising. The interim government of Muhammad Yunus took power. Nasrul Hamid — one of the architects of the energy syndicate — fled the country.

Bangladeshis in the energy sector expected a reckoning.

What they got instead was complicated.

The interim government’s adviser for the Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan, claimed the old syndicate had been dismantled:

“The syndicate that existed in the energy sector has been completely dismantled. Previously there were six or seven suppliers; now there are 25. Costs may have risen but LNG import volumes have also increased.”

But when asked directly whether relatives of Nasrul Hamid — who were embedded in the LNG supply chain — were still receiving contracts under the new government, the adviser gave a telling answer:

“We have no such documents.”

Not a denial. A claim of ignorance.

Meanwhile, Prothom Alo reported that despite Vitol Asia not receiving fresh contracts after August 2024, both TotalEnergies and Gunvor were awarded two new contracts each in October 2024 — meaning companies that supplied Bangladesh for years under Nasrul Hamid’s watch continued supplying Bangladesh after his fall. The syndicate’s preferred vendors simply kept winning.

Bonikbarta’s January 2026 investigation found a darker conclusion: despite the change in government, “industry insiders allege that syndicate activity by various vested interests has intensified and import costs have risen.”

The Systematic Problem: How Bangladesh’s Energy Sector Was Structurally Corrupted

What happened with PowerCo and the LNG syndicate was not an accident. It was the product of deliberate structural design over 15 years:

1. The Approved Vendor List Was Engineered

Petrobangla maintains a list of 23 companies approved to supply LNG from the spot market. According to insiders, this list was deliberately constructed to exclude genuine competition. Companies not connected to the syndicate would participate in tenders, win nothing, and eventually stop bidding — having concluded the game was rigged against them.

2. The Single Representative Model

Having one man (Ejazur Rahman) represent both the two largest suppliers (Vitol and Gunvor) eliminated any real competition between them. They effectively coordinated through the same agent to divide Bangladesh’s LNG market between themselves.

3. G2G Contracts as Cover

Some contracts were structured as “Government-to-Government” (G2G) deals — meaning they bypassed competitive tender entirely. G2G arrangements with countries like India, Qatar, and Oman provided legitimate cover for the overall import system, while spot market contracts were distributed through the syndicate.

4. The Price Never Fell When Global Prices Did

Throughout the Awami League era, when global fuel prices dropped, Bangladeshi consumers saw no corresponding relief. BPC consistently cited import costs as justification for maintaining high retail prices. The gap between global market prices and what BPC paid its syndicate suppliers — and the downstream kickbacks that disappeared offshore — is where billions vanished.

5. Domestic Gas Was Deliberately Neglected

Bangladesh has significant domestic gas reserves. A 2017 Gas Sector Master Plan recommended major investment in domestic gas exploration. Instead of implementing it, the government turned to LNG imports — creating the demand that the syndicate then profited from.

By 2024, Bangladesh had spent over Tk 2 trillion on LNG imports since 2019. Investment in domestic gas exploration remained negligible. The Yunus interim government’s own master plan now projects $25-30 billion in LNG infrastructure spending through 2050 — potentially the next generation of the same systemic trap.

The Legal Standard: What Experts Said

When Netra News shared their findings on the PowerCo deal with James S. Henry, an anti-corruption expert and fellow at Yale University’s Global Justice Program, his assessment was unambiguous:

“The allegation here is that we have a classic case of a consortium that gets awarded a major contract, and one of the key minority players in the consortium turns out to be directly related, in corporate ownership, to close family members of a minister sitting in power. If that’s substantiated and holds up, that’s a pretty clear cut conflict of interest — potentially a violation of Bangladesh’s own anti-corruption laws.”

“This is a typical case of influence peddling that I have seen time and time again while investigating corruption cases in developing countries. There is a strong prima facie case for a much more substantial anti-corruption investigation by law enforcement agencies.”

That investigation never came — not under the Awami League government, and not yet under the interim government that replaced it.

The Pattern Bangladesh Must Recognize

The PowerCo story is not unique to the energy sector. It is the model of how Bangladesh’s state machinery was captured under fifteen years of AL rule — and potentially continues to operate under new management:

• Step 1: Place political loyalist or family member in a key ministry or regulatory role
• Step 2: Create or designate an “approved” vendor list that artificially limits competition
• Step 3: Insert a shell company connected to the political figure into winning consortiums
• Step 4: Use international companies with bribery records (Vitol, Gunvor, Marubeni) as the professional cover — they provide legitimacy; the shell company provides the extraction mechanism
• Step 5: Suppress any journalism that exposes the arrangement, using threats, professional attacks, and legal pressure
• Step 6: When exposed, flee the country — and watch the same vendors continue winning contracts under the new government

Bangladesh’s foreign currency reserves bled for years. Consumers paid inflated fuel prices. Domestic gas exploration was suppressed to maintain import dependency. And a minister’s uncle’s company — with $100 to its name and three employees who couldn’t name their own CEO — held a stake in a $305 million national infrastructure project.

What Accountability Looks Like

The questions that demand answers from Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the interim government:

1. Has the BPC-PowerCo-Vitol-Marubeni MoU been formally cancelled?
2. Has Nasrul Hamid been charged with corruption offences related to the energy sector?
3. Have the kickback flows through Vitol, Gunvor, and other suppliers been forensically audited?
4. Is Ejazur Rahman — the shared representative of Vitol and Gunvor — being investigated?
5. Have the 23 approved LNG suppliers been independently reviewed for political connections to the current government?
6. What happened to the Tk 25 crore already spent on feasibility studies for the PowerCo-linked LPG terminal?

A country that spent $15 billion on energy imports in six years deserves answers to every single one of these questions.

So far, the silence has been deafening.

Sources

• The Business Standard: “How Nasrul Hamid cut $300m LPG project primary deal for his $100 shell firm” (August 28, 2024)
• Netra News: “Power corruption: All the state minister’s men” (2021)
• Prothom Alo: “Nasrul Hamid behind LNG business syndicate” (November 8, 2024)
• Bonikbarta: “Fuel imports worth BDT 1.5 trillion major source of graft, capital flight” (January 29, 2026)
• US Department of Justice: Vitol settlement ($164 million, December 2020)
• US Department of Justice: Gunvor settlement ($660 million, March 2024)
• Yale Global Justice Program: James S. Henry commentary (via Netra News, 2021)

People in Bangladesh are criticizing NCP leaders for going out to eat duck. Counting their taka. Questioning every plate of food.

Nobody asks where Zaima Rahman’s wardrobe comes from.

The Prime Minister’s daughter steps out in a different saree at every event — silk, muslin, Banarasi, hand-woven Jamdani — each one worth tens of thousands of taka. In London she built a life of expensive education, upscale living, and the quiet comfort of someone who has never had to worry about money. She returned to Dhaka in December 2025 and the country fell over itself praising her “simplicity.”

Simplicity. In sarees that cost more than a garment worker’s monthly salary.

Nobody is asking the question. So we will.

Where does the money come from?

A Family That Courts Said Was Laundering Money

Start with what’s documented.

In 2007, the Anti-Corruption Commission filed a money laundering case against Tarique Rahman and his close friend Giasuddin Al Mamun. The allegation: Tarique used his political position — as the de facto power behind his mother Khaleda Zia’s government — to direct government contracts to Mamun, who then laundered the proceeds abroad. The amount: Tk 20.41 crore.

In 2016, the High Court convicted Tarique. Sentenced him to seven years in prison. Fined him Tk 20 crore. The court found that “Tarique Rahman influenced political power to help his close friend, Giasuddin Mamun, to get and then launder 200 million taka.”

The laundered money — Tk 20 crore returned by the Singapore government — was sitting at Bangladesh Bank. The ACC also filed a case against Tarique and his wife Zubaida Rahman for amassing wealth beyond known sources of income.

Then the July 2024 uprising happened. By 2025, every case was acquitted. Tarique became Prime Minister on February 17, 2026.

The wealth didn’t disappear. Just the accountability.

17 Years in London: On What Income?

Tarique Rahman left Bangladesh in 2008. He landed in London. He stayed for seventeen years.

London is not cheap. A comfortable flat in a decent London neighborhood runs £2,000–£4,000 per month in rent. A house in areas favored by wealthy South Asian diaspora costs far more.

Zaima went to International School Dhaka before the family relocated. In London, she enrolled at Queen Mary University of London — a Russell Group institution — for her law degree. Then Lincoln’s Inn, one of England’s four Inns of Court, for her Bar-at-law certification, received in 2019.

Queen Mary tuition for international students: approximately £20,000 per year. Lincoln’s Inn qualification fees and living expenses: tens of thousands of pounds more.

The family’s declared income during those seventeen years? Tarique was in exile, a convicted criminal in Bangladesh, with assets allegedly frozen under court order. His wife Zubaida is a doctor and may have practiced in the UK. But the lifestyle they maintained does not come from an NHS salary.

Barrister Zaima was called to the Bar in 2019. A newly called barrister in London typically earns between £30,000 and £60,000 in early years — before London living expenses. Zaima does not appear to have been in active practice; she has spent recent years representing her father at political events, not clients in court.

So: Queen Mary education. Lincoln’s Inn. Seventeen years in London. Luxury sarees at every public appearance in Dhaka. On what income?

The Wardrobe Nobody Is Talking About

Since returning to Bangladesh in December 2025, Zaima Rahman has appeared at dozens of public events — political meetings, diplomatic receptions, state functions, media appearances.

The sarees are not Aarong. They are not off-the-rack from New Market.

A handwoven Dhakai Jamdani muslin saree of quality can run Tk 20,000–80,000 and up. A Banarasi silk saree for formal events: Tk 30,000–150,000. An embroidered designer piece: easily Tk 1,00,000 or more. Zaima has attended multiple events per week since arriving. She has not worn the same saree twice in public photographs.

Calculate that math.

Her father spent years being called “Mr. Ten Percent” — the nickname for the commission allegedly extracted from every government contract through Hawa Bhaban. A US Embassy cable described him as a “symbol of kleptocratic government.” The ACC, the FBI, and Singapore courts all found evidence of money laundering.

The question is not whether there is wealth in the Rahman family. There clearly is. The question is: where did it come from, and why is nobody asking?

The Double Standard Is Glaring

NCP leaders eat duck and Bangladesh erupts. The Prime Minister’s daughter wears a different designer saree to every event — in a country where the average monthly income is under Tk 15,000 — and the commentary is about how elegant she looks.

The same people who screamed about Awami League corruption are not asking about the source of this wealth. The same media that hunted down every receipt for Sheikh Hasina’s foreign trips is not asking how a family that spent seventeen years in London exile, with assets allegedly frozen, managed to sustain and apparently grow significant wealth.

This is not about Zaima personally. She did not choose who her father is. Attacking her personally, or her clothing choices in isolation, is not the point. The point is accountability. The same accountability that Bangladeshis — rightly — demand of every public figure who accumulates unexplained wealth.

Zaima Rahman is now effectively a public political figure. She attended the US National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on behalf of her father. She meets foreign dignitaries. She appears at state functions. She has stepped into the political arena. That means her family’s finances are a legitimate public question.

What Nobody Has Declared

Bangladesh law requires public officials to declare their assets. Tarique Rahman’s asset declarations were the basis for the ACC’s wealth-beyond-means case. That case is now acquitted. But the wealth is still there. The question is still unanswered.

How much is the Rahman family worth? What assets do they hold in the UK? What accounts exist in Singapore, where courts once found evidence of laundered funds? What is the source of the income that funded seventeen years of comfortable London exile, a Lincoln’s Inn legal education, and a wardrobe that costs more per event than most Bangladeshis earn in a month?

These are not opposition talking points. These are accounting questions. The kind that should follow any family that moves from a corruption conviction to the Prime Minister’s residence without stopping to explain how.

The Duck Eaters and the Saree Wearers

If a junior politician eating duck deserves national outrage, the Prime Minister’s daughter’s unexplained luxury wardrobe deserves at minimum a question. A financial disclosure. A press conference where someone actually asks.

Instead, Bangladesh’s media has published dozens of articles about Zaima’s “simple” and “graceful” presence. Her suits. Her demeanor. Her “dignity.”

Nobody asked: on whose money?

Until now.

Sources: Anti-Corruption Commission case records (2007); High Court verdict, Tarique Rahman money laundering case (July 21, 2016); Al Jazeera — “Bangladesh: Tarique Rahman jailed for money laundering” (July 21, 2016); Prothom Alo — “Tarique Rahman, Zubaida Rahman acquitted in ACC case” (May 28, 2025); US Embassy WikiLeaks cable (2005); Wikipedia — Zaima Rahman; BBC News Bangla (February 20, 2026); Times Now (December 27, 2025).

At 5:22 PM on August 21, 2004, Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka became a killing ground.

Thirteen grenades rained into a crowd of 20,000 people. Military-grade Arges grenades — the kind used in wars, not street protests — thrown from rooftops by twelve men who had prayed together that afternoon, eaten lunch, and listened to a sermon on jihad before taking their positions.

Sixteen people died where they fell. Eight more died later from their injuries. Twenty-four in total. Hundreds more were maimed, deafened, blinded, left carrying shrapnel in their bodies for the rest of their lives.

Sheikh Hasina survived. The attack was designed to kill her. It didn’t. But it killed twenty-four other people — party leaders, activists, ordinary Bangladeshis who came to a political rally and never went home.

Their names were buried almost immediately. The government refused to register criminal cases. The crime scene was washed with detergent. Two unidentified dead were hurriedly buried in the middle of the night. The official story blamed a petty criminal from Noakhali named Joj Mia, who had been tortured into a false confession.

This article is about the twenty-four people who actually died. About who they were. About the systematic effort to make the state’s role invisible. And about what it means that the men convicted of planning the massacre were acquitted — every last one — within days of each other in late 2024.

The Attack: What Actually Happened

The rally was called to protest a bombing in Sylhet that had targeted Awami League workers. By 5 PM, Bangabandhu Avenue was packed. Sheikh Hasina finished her speech from the back of a truck being used as a stage.

The rooftops around her had been cleared. The volunteer security teams — Sechchasebak and Chhatra League — who would normally have secured those positions were turned away. The rooftops were closed.

Twelve men had been placed there instead.

Abu Jandal threw the first grenade. The rest followed. Thirteen grenades in seconds, into a crowd with nowhere to run.

“The specialised deadly Arges grenades that are used in wars were blasted at the Awami League’s central office on 23 Bangabandhu Avenue in broad daylight with the help of the then state machinery.”

That wasn’t a journalist’s opinion. That was Judge Shahed Nuruddin of Speedy Trial Tribunal-1, delivering the 2018 verdict that sentenced nineteen people to death and nineteen others — including Tarique Rahman, son of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia — to life imprisonment.

The 24 Who Died

The attack killed 24 Awami League leaders, activists, and supporters.

1. Ivy Rahman — née Jebun Nahar Ivy. She was the Awami League Women’s Affairs Secretary. She was also the wife of Zillur Rahman, who would later become President of Bangladesh. She was gravely wounded on the 21st and fought for her life for three days. She died on August 24, 2004.

2. Mahbubur Rahman — Sheikh Hasina’s personal bodyguard. He died at the scene, shielding her from the blast. His name appears in every court record of the attack.

3–24 — Twenty-two other Awami League leaders and activists. Among those confirmed dead in reporting by The Daily Star, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, and court records: Nazmul Huda Sagar, Liakat Hossain, Surendra Nath Dey Suren, Momtaz Begum, Md. Abu Taher, and nineteen others whose names are preserved in the 12,000-page trial judgment.

The State Moved to Erase Them

Within hours of the attack, the cover-up began. It was not chaotic or improvised. It was systematic.

Bangladesh Police refused to register a criminal case. Awami League filed a First Information Report. Police declined. They registered only a general diary — a clerical notation, not an investigation.

The crime scene was washed with water and detergent. Evidence was destroyed before forensic teams could collect it. Recovered grenades were deliberately destroyed rather than preserved.

Two unidentified bodies were buried in the middle of the night — hurriedly, without documentation. The Supreme Court Bar Association later accused the government of evidence destruction.

The government refused to hand over the bodies of the victims to their families, according to Sheikh Hasina’s own account.

The BNP government then invented a story. The Crime Investigation Department produced “Joj Mia” — Jamal Ahmed, a petty criminal from Noakhali. He confessed on June 26, 2005. He had been tortured into it. The story collapsed under investigative journalism within months.

A one-man judicial commission led by Justice Joynul Abedin then blamed the attack on “a neighbouring country.” The Daily Star called Abedin “a shame for the judiciary.”

Who Planned the Attack

When the military-backed caretaker government took office in January 2007, a real investigation began. Mufti Abdul Hannan — chief of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) — confessed in November 2007. He named names. He described the planning meetings at Hawa Bhaban — Tarique Rahman’s political office.

The 2018 verdict named the architects:

Tarique Rahman — Sentenced to life imprisonment. Used Hawa Bhaban as the coordination point for the plot.

Lutfozzaman Babar — State Minister for Home Affairs. Sentenced to death. Ran the police, ran the intelligence chain, ensured the crime scene was washed and the FIR rejected.

Abdus Salam Pintu — Sentenced to death. His home was a planning venue. His brother distributed the grenades.

Harris Chowdhury — Political Secretary to PM Khaleda Zia. Sentenced to life.

Brigadier General Abdur Rahim — Director General of NSI. Sentenced to death.

Brigadier General Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury — Director General of DGFI. Sentenced to death.

The attack was code-named internally: “Light Snacks for Sheikh Hasina” (Bengali: Sheikh Hasina ke nashta korano). It had a code name. It had reconnaissance the day before. It had a logistics chain reaching from Dhaka to Pakistan. Twenty-four people died in an operation given a jokey code name by the men who planned it.

The Acquittals — Everything Undone

On October 1, 2018, a court convicted 49 people. Nineteen death sentences. Nineteen life terms, including Tarique Rahman. The verdict ran to 12,000 pages.

On December 1, 2024, the High Court acquitted everyone. Tarique Rahman. Lutfozzaman Babar. All nineteen sentenced to death. All nineteen sentenced to life. On September 4, 2025, the Appellate Division dismissed a retrial petition, making the acquittal final.

The same court system reversed every finding — not because new evidence emerged, but because the political winds changed. Tarique Rahman is now Prime Minister of Bangladesh, sworn in February 17, 2026.

The Cover-Up Is the Confession

A government with nothing to hide does not wash a crime scene with detergent. It does not refuse victims’ bodies. It does not torture a petty criminal into a false confession. It does not convene a commission that blames a neighbouring country.

The BNP did all of these things. The pattern is consistent across Shamsunnahar, the arms haul, and August 21: violence at the highest levels, scapegoats at the lowest, state machinery ensuring no evidence survives.

Ivy Rahman died on August 24 — three days after the grenades. The other twenty-two were party workers and supporters who came to a rally against terrorism on a Saturday afternoon. They were killed by state-sponsored terrorism.

The men who planned their deaths were convicted by a court that spent years examining the evidence. Those convictions were erased. The twenty-four are still dead. That has not changed.

Sources: Wikipedia — 2004 Dhaka grenade attack; Human Rights Watch; The Daily Star archives; Speedy Trial Tribunal-1 verdict (October 2018), Judge Shahed Nuruddin; Mufti Abdul Hannan confessional statement (November 2007); US Embassy WikiLeaks cables (2005); International Crisis Group Asia Reports; BBC News.

“From Fugitive to Prime Minister” — The Incredible Escape, 17-Year Exile, and Return of Tarique Rahman

Part 3 of “The Dark Prince” — Tarique Rahman Exposé. Read Part 1: World Champion of Corruption and Part 2: The Grenade Attack That Nearly Killed Democracy.

In November 2008, the United States Ambassador to Bangladesh sent a classified cable to Washington describing a man he called a “symbol of kleptocratic government and violent politics.” The man was “notorious and widely feared” — someone who had “flagrantly and frequently” demanded bribes, who was linked to the deadliest political attack in Bangladesh’s history, and whose name had surfaced in an FBI investigation into transnational money laundering.

Eighteen years later, on February 17, 2026, that same man took the oath of office as the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

His name is Tarique Rahman. And his journey — from arrest to exile, from fugitive to acquittal, from London drawing room to the Prime Minister’s residence — is perhaps the most extraordinary political resurrection in modern South Asian history. It is also, as this investigation argues, one of the most carefully engineered.

This is the story of how it happened.

Chapter 1: The Fall — Arrest Under 1/11 (March 2007)

On January 11, 2007, Bangladesh’s military intervened. A caretaker government — nominally civilian but backed entirely by the armed forces — declared a state of emergency, suspended elections, and launched what it called a sweeping anti-corruption drive. The event is known simply as “1/11.”

The two primary targets were the country’s rival political dynasties: the Awami League’s Sheikh Hasina and BNP’s Khaleda Zia. Both were arrested. So were hundreds of politicians, business leaders, and party operatives from both sides.

But no arrest carried more symbolic weight than that of Tarique Rahman.

On March 7, 2007, Tarique was detained by the National Security Intelligence (NSI) and subsequently placed under the custody of the Joint Forces — a combined military-civilian law enforcement body created under emergency powers. He was held for 18 months.

The Charges

The cases filed against Tarique during and after 1/11 were extensive. Over the course of the caretaker government’s tenure, a total of 84 cases were registered against him, spanning:

• Money laundering — Tk 20.41 crore (approximately $2.4 million at the time) laundered through associates and shell entities
• The Zia Orphanage Trust — Siphoning funds from a charitable trust established in the name of former President Ziaur Rahman
• The August 21, 2004 grenade attack — 24 people killed, over 500 injured in a state-sponsored assassination attempt on opposition leader Sheikh Hasina (full investigation here)
• Extortion, arms trafficking, and abuse of power — Cases linked to the Hawa Bhaban shadow government
• The Chittagong arms haul — 10 truckloads of military weapons intercepted in 2004, intended for Indian insurgents (full investigation here)

These were not politically invented charges by any normal measure. Several predated 1/11 entirely. The grenade attack investigation had been running since 2004, interrupted by the BNP government’s own cover-up involving a fabricated suspect named “Joj Mia.” The corruption charges were rooted in evidence collected by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), and the money laundering investigation had drawn the attention of the FBI and the US Department of Justice.

“Tarique Rahman, the notorious and widely feared son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia… Notorious for flagrantly and frequently demanding bribes in connection with government procurement actions and appointments to political office, Tarique is a symbol of kleptocratic government and violent politics in Bangladesh.”

— US Embassy Cable 08DHAKA1143, Ambassador James F. Moriarty, November 3, 2008 (WikiLeaks)

Claims of Torture

Tarique and his supporters have consistently claimed that he was tortured during his 18-month detention. BNP alleges that he was subjected to physical abuse by military intelligence officers, that he was denied adequate medical care, and that confessions and cooperation were coerced under duress.

These claims have never been independently verified. No international human rights investigation was permitted access during his detention. What is documented is that Bangladesh’s detention conditions during the emergency period were broadly criticized — for all political detainees, not Tarique alone.

However, the torture narrative would later become the central justification for the revenge that followed.

Chapter 2: The Escape — September 11, 2008

On September 11, 2008 — a date that would acquire its own symbolism — Tarique Rahman was released on bail. But his release came with a condition that would later be disputed, denied, and ultimately erased from history.

According to multiple contemporaneous reports, Tarique signed a written declaration at Zia International Airport in which he agreed to:

• Leave Bangladesh immediately
• Resign from active politics
• Seek medical treatment abroad

He boarded a flight to London. He would not return for 17 years.

The US Embassy cable, sent just weeks later, described the arrangement with clinical precision:

“[Tarique] was released from prison in September 2008, partly on compassionate grounds and in connection with a written declaration at the airport that he was resigning from political activity.”

— US Embassy Cable 08DHAKA1143

The cable also noted the broader context of the deal:

“Following Tarique’s arrest in March 2007, his mother [Khaleda Zia] was arrested in September 2007 on corruption charges. Both were released before elections; Tarique was allowed to leave the country, reportedly after signing a declaration forgoing political activities.”

The specifics of who negotiated the release and under what exact terms remain partially obscured. What is clear is that Tarique left Bangladesh as a man facing dozens of criminal charges, with a written promise to stay out of politics, and with the understanding that his departure was a negotiated arrangement — not an acquittal.

Chapter 3: The London Years — Exile and Remote Control (2008–2025)

For the next 17 years, Tarique Rahman lived in London — far from the courtrooms where his cases were being tried, far from the streets where BNP activists were being arrested, but never far from the party’s decision-making.

Running BNP from Abroad

Despite his written declaration to resign from politics, Tarique never stopped. From his London residence, he:

• Maintained daily contact with BNP’s standing committee via phone and video conference
• Approved (or vetoed) all major party decisions, from alliance strategies to candidate selections
• Was formally elevated to Acting Chairman of BNP — effectively running the party while his mother Khaleda Zia was imprisoned in Dhaka
• Directed BNP’s political strategy through a network of loyalists who traveled regularly between Dhaka and London
• Coordinated with diaspora BNP chapters across the UK, US, and Middle East

The irony was not lost on observers. A man who had signed a declaration renouncing politics was, from a flat in London, the single most powerful figure in Bangladesh’s largest opposition party.

Convicted in Absentia

While Tarique lived in London, Bangladesh’s courts continued to process the cases against him:

• 2016: Convicted in the Zia Orphanage Trust case — 7 years imprisonment, Tk 10 lakh fine
• 2018: Convicted in the August 21, 2004 grenade attack — life imprisonment. The court found that the attack was planned at Hawa Bhaban with Tarique’s direct involvement
• Multiple money laundering and corruption convictions accumulated over the years

Tarique’s legal team challenged every verdict. BNP called every conviction “politically motivated.” But the convictions stood — and they made Tarique a convicted criminal under Bangladesh law, ineligible to hold office, and subject to arrest the moment he set foot in the country.

The October 2025 Appearance

On October 2025, Tarique Rahman made his first media appearance in 17 years. In a video statement from London, he called the 1/11 military-backed caretaker government “maliciously motivated” and described its anti-corruption drive as a “conspiracy against democracy.”

He framed the entire 1/11 period — the emergency, the arrests, the investigations, the charges — as an illegitimate exercise designed to destroy BNP and its leadership. The timing was deliberate. By October 2025, the political ground in Bangladesh had already shifted beneath everyone’s feet.

Chapter 4: The Uprising — July 2024

In July 2024, Bangladesh was convulsed by a student-led uprising that began as protests against a controversial job quota system and escalated into a full-scale movement demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The Hasina government’s response was brutal — security forces fired on protesters, internet was shut down nationwide, and hundreds were killed. But the movement could not be stopped. On August 5, 2024, Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh by military helicopter, ending 15 years of uninterrupted Awami League rule.

An interim government led by Nobel laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus took charge. The political landscape was suddenly, radically open. And for Tarique Rahman, the 17-year wait was nearly over.

Chapter 5: The Great Acquittal — Erasing 84 Cases (Late 2024–2025)

What happened next was one of the most systematic judicial reversals in modern history. Between late 2024 and mid-2025, every single one of Tarique Rahman’s 84 criminal cases was dismissed, acquitted, or otherwise disposed of.

The pace and comprehensiveness of these acquittals were extraordinary:

Consider what this means. The August 21 grenade attack — in which 24 people died and over 500 were injured, in which the trial court heard from hundreds of witnesses, in which the judge found a “well-orchestrated plan executed through abuse of state power” — was overturned. The life sentence: gone.

The Zia Orphanage Trust case — in which funds meant for orphans were allegedly siphoned into BNP’s political operations — was overturned. The money laundering case — which had drawn the attention of the FBI and the US Department of Justice, as documented in Cable 08DHAKA1143 — was overturned.

Every case. Every conviction. Every sentence. All 84.

Not a single conviction survived the new political dispensation. A man sentenced to life for the deadliest grenade attack in Bangladesh’s history walked free — not because new evidence proved his innocence, but because the political winds had changed.

Critics — including international legal observers, human rights organizations, and the families of August 21 victims — noted that the acquittals followed a clear political pattern: they began only after Hasina’s ouster, accelerated as BNP’s political influence grew under the interim government, and were completed just in time for Tarique to return as a free man.

Chapter 6: The Return — December 25, 2025

On Christmas Day 2025 — December 25 — Tarique Rahman landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka. He had left as a man on bail facing dozens of charges. He returned as a man acquitted of everything.

Seventeen years. Six thousand two hundred and fourteen days. That is how long Tarique Rahman stayed away from the country where he was born, where he built his political empire, and where courts had sentenced him to life in prison.

BNP organized massive rallies to welcome him. Hundreds of thousands of supporters lined the roads from the airport. The party machinery that had waited 17 years for this moment was in full operation.

The man who left Bangladesh signing a declaration to quit politics had returned to claim its highest office.

Chapter 7: The Victory — February 2026

On February 12, 2026, Bangladesh held its national election. BNP won a landslide victory with a two-thirds parliamentary majority — the kind of supermajority that allows constitutional amendments.

Five days later, on February 17, 2026, Tarique Rahman was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

The transformation was complete. The man described by the US Ambassador as a “symbol of kleptocratic government” now led the government. The man convicted of masterminding a grenade attack that killed 24 people now commanded the state. The man whose money laundering had been tracked by the FBI now controlled the nation’s treasury.

Chapter 8: The Revenge — Arresting the Men Who Arrested Him

Within weeks of taking power, the new government began systematically arresting the officials who had led the 1/11 anti-corruption drive — the very people who had detained Tarique Rahman in 2007.

Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Masud Uddin Chowdhury — Arrested March 23, 2026

Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Masud Uddin Chowdhury was a senior military officer during the 2007-2009 caretaker government. After his military career, he served as Bangladesh High Commissioner to Australia (2008–2014) and was later elected as a Member of Parliament from Feni-3.

On March 23, 2026, he was arrested on 11 charges. His arrest came barely five weeks after Tarique Rahman took office.

Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Sheikh Mamun Khaled — Arrested March 26, 2026

Three days later, Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Sheikh Mamun Khaled — another key military figure during 1/11 — was arrested on charges of murder and corruption.

Mohammad Afzal Naser — Arrested March 30, 2026

On March 30, 2026, Mohammad Afzal Naser was arrested. The prosecution’s statement was remarkably explicit about the motivation:

Mohammad Afzal Naser was arrested because he was “involved in the arrest and torture of Tarique Rahman” during the 2007-2009 caretaker government.

— Bangladesh prosecution statement, March 30, 2026

There was no pretense of neutral justice here. The state openly acknowledged that the arrest was connected to what had been done to Tarique Rahman — not to any ongoing criminal investigation, not to any fresh evidence, but to the fact that this man had participated in detaining the person who was now Prime Minister.

International Response

Human Rights Watch took notice immediately. In a statement on April 1, 2026, HRW confirmed that all three arrested officials were “key figures during the 2007-2009 military-backed government” and called for scrutiny of the legal basis for their detention.

India’s NE News was more blunt, describing the arrests as:

“Acts of revenge and retaliation” by the new government against those who had carried out the 2007 anti-corruption drive.

— NE News India, April 2026

The pattern was unmistakable. The people being arrested were not random officials. They were the specific individuals who had been involved in Tarique Rahman’s detention, investigation, and prosecution. The new government was not pursuing justice — it was settling scores.

Chapter 9: Why It Matters — The Strategic Logic of Revenge

The arrests of 1/11 officials are not merely acts of personal vengeance. They serve a sophisticated multi-layered strategic purpose:

1. Delegitimizing the Evidence

By framing the entire 1/11 period as illegitimate — as a “maliciously motivated” conspiracy rather than a legitimate anti-corruption drive — the Tarique government retroactively undermines every piece of evidence gathered during that period. If the arrests were illegal, then the investigations were tainted. If the investigations were tainted, then the convictions were unjust. If the convictions were unjust, then the acquittals were not political favors — they were corrections of historic wrongs.

This is circular logic disguised as legal principle.

2. Justifying the Acquittals

The mass acquittal of 84 cases is politically unsustainable without a narrative. The narrative is: 1/11 was a coup, everything that followed was illegitimate, and therefore Tarique was always innocent. The arrests of 1/11 officials reinforce this narrative by turning the investigators into the accused.

3. Exacting Personal Revenge

The prosecution’s own statement — that Afzal Naser was arrested for being “involved in the arrest and torture of Tarique Rahman” — makes the personal dimension explicit. This is the Prime Minister using state power to punish those who once exercised state power against him.

4. Eliminating Witnesses

Several of the 1/11 officials cooperated with international agencies — including the FBI — during their investigation of Tarique’s financial network. As documented in Part 1 of this series, the FBI investigated a $2 million payment from a Singaporean businessman to Tarique, and the US State Department imposed a visa ban on him based on the evidence gathered.

Officials who cooperated with these international investigations are now being arrested. The message to anyone who might testify about Tarique’s past is unmistakable: cooperate at your own risk.

5. Rewriting History

If 1/11 is successfully reframed as a conspiracy rather than an anti-corruption intervention, then everything that came from it — the evidence, the court proceedings, the international cooperation, the WikiLeaks cables — can be dismissed as fruit of a poisoned tree. The entire historical record of BNP’s corruption, Tarique’s money laundering, and the grenade attack conspiracy can be buried under a counter-narrative of persecution.

Chapter 10: The India Connection

Perhaps the most revealing dimension of Tarique Rahman’s ascent is the role of India.

For 15 years, India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi maintained a close strategic partnership with Sheikh Hasina’s government. India considered Hasina a reliable partner on border security, counter-terrorism, and the containment of Islamist militancy in the region.

When Hasina fell in August 2024, India faced a strategic dilemma. The interim government under Muhammad Yunus was viewed with suspicion in New Delhi. The possibility of a Jamaat-e-Islami-influenced government — BNP’s traditional coalition partner — was India’s nightmare scenario.

India’s Pivot to Tarique

India’s solution was pragmatic and rapid: cultivate Tarique Rahman directly.

• PM Modi was the FIRST world leader to call Tarique on February 12, 2026 — election day — to congratulate him on BNP’s victory. Not after the results were final. On the day itself.
• India sent the Lok Sabha Speaker — one of the highest constitutional officials — to Tarique’s oath-taking ceremony on February 17, carrying a personal letter from PM Modi.
• Indian diplomatic sources described the outreach as a “strategic recalibration” — India would work with whoever was in power, as long as they were “cooperative.”

The calculation was straightforward: India preferred a cooperative Prime Minister with a corruption past it could leverage over an unpredictable Jamaat-influenced alternative it could not control. A compromised leader is, from a strategic standpoint, a useful leader.

India’s pivot from Hasina to Tarique was not an endorsement of his innocence — it was an acknowledgment of his inevitability. In the cold arithmetic of South Asian geopolitics, a pliant partner with baggage beats an ideological wildcard every time.

As India Today and the Indian Express reported extensively, India’s diplomatic machinery moved with unusual speed to establish rapport with Tarique — a man whose party had historically been considered anti-India and whose coalition partner, Jamaat-e-Islami, had openly opposed Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.

The message from New Delhi was clear: the past is negotiable when the future is at stake.

The Full Circle: From “Kleptocrat” to Prime Minister

Consider the arc:

• 2001–2006: Tarique Rahman runs a shadow government from Hawa Bhaban, overseeing the most corrupt administration in Bangladesh’s history. The country is ranked the most corrupt nation on Earth for five consecutive years.
• 2004: A grenade attack planned at Hawa Bhaban kills 24 people. The government blames a pickpocket.
• 2005: The US Ambassador calls him a “symbol of kleptocratic government.”
• 2007: Arrested. Held for 18 months.
• 2008: Released on bail. Signs declaration to quit politics. Flees to London.
• 2008–2025: Runs BNP from exile for 17 years while being convicted in absentia on multiple charges including a life sentence for mass murder.
• 2024: The political landscape shifts. Hasina falls.
• 2024–2025: All 84 cases systematically acquitted.
• December 2025: Returns to Bangladesh.
• February 2026: Sworn in as Prime Minister.
• March 2026: Begins arresting the people who arrested him.

This is not a story about justice delayed. This is a story about justice reversed.

What This Means for Bangladesh

The implications of Tarique Rahman’s ascent extend far beyond one man’s political career. They reach into the foundations of Bangladesh’s democratic institutions.

The judiciary has demonstrated that convictions — even for murder, even based on extensive evidence and witness testimony — can be overturned when political power shifts. Every future court verdict in Bangladesh now carries an implicit asterisk: subject to change based on who is in power.

The anti-corruption apparatus has been gutted. Officials who participated in legitimate investigations are being arrested. The message to every future investigator, prosecutor, and judge is: do not pursue the powerful, because the powerful will one day come for you.

International cooperation on corruption and terrorism — with the FBI, with Interpol, with foreign intelligence agencies — has been rendered dangerous. Bangladeshi officials who cooperated with international investigations are now facing prosecution. No rational official will cooperate again.

Historical truth is being rewritten in real time. The 1/11 anti-corruption drive — which, whatever its flaws, produced evidence that has been validated by international agencies, cited in US diplomatic cables, and adjudicated in courts over more than a decade — is being refashioned as a conspiracy. The message: evidence means nothing. Power means everything.

And the victims — the 24 people killed on August 21, 2004, the 500 injured, the families who waited years for justice — have been told, definitively, that their lives mattered less than one man’s political ambition.

This is the story of a man who was called a kleptocrat by the United States, convicted of mass murder by his own country’s courts, banned from entry by the world’s most powerful nation — and who today sits in the Prime Minister’s chair, using the power of the state to arrest the people who once dared to hold him accountable.

If this does not alarm you, nothing will.

This is Part 3 of “The Dark Prince” — a three-part investigation into Tarique Rahman by Bangladesh Untold.

• Part 1: World Champion of Corruption — How BNP Made Bangladesh the Most Corrupt Country on Earth
• Part 2: The Grenade Attack That Nearly Killed Democracy — August 21, 2004
• Part 3: From Fugitive to Prime Minister — The Incredible Escape, 17-Year Exile, and Return of Tarique Rahman (this article)

Sources

• WikiLeaks — US Embassy Cable 08DHAKA1143_a, Ambassador James F. Moriarty, November 3, 2008
• Human Rights Watch — Statement on arrests of former military officials, April 1, 2026
• NE News India — “Acts of revenge and retaliation,” April 2026
• BBC News, Al Jazeera, Reuters, The Guardian — Coverage of Bangladesh 2024 uprising and 2026 elections
• India Today, Indian Express — Coverage of India-Tarique diplomatic relations, February 2026
• Dhaka Tribune, The Daily Star, The Business Standard — Contemporaneous reporting on acquittals, 2024–2025
• Transparency International — Corruption Perceptions Index, 2001–2005