Bangladesh Untold

Tag: Hawa Bhaban

  • The Largest Arms Haul in South Asian History Just Vanished From the Record Books

    4,930 firearms. 27,020 grenades. 840 rocket launchers. 1.14 million rounds of ammunition. Ten truckloads of military-grade weapons seized on Bangladeshi soil, destined for an insurgency in another country. Two state intelligence agencies knew. A cabinet minister facilitated. And then the entire case was buried — for thirteen years — by the very government whose officials were complicit.

    You’ve heard about corruption. You’ve read about grenade attacks and extrajudicial killings. But nothing — nothing — captures the sheer scale of what the BNP-Jamaat government was willing to enable like the Chittagong Arms Haul case.

    On April 1, 2004, Bangladeshi police and Coast Guard intercepted the largest weapons shipment ever seized in South Asian history. Ten trucks. Enough weapons to arm a small army. And the trail led directly to the highest levels of government.

    Then the case went silent. For over a decade.

    Here’s what happened — and what they don’t want you to remember.

    The Night They Caught a War

    April 1, 2004. Late night. Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited (CUFL) jetty, on the Karnaphuli River.

    Acting on a tip-off, police and Coast Guard units interrupted the loading of weapons onto ten trucks at the CUFL jetty. What they found was staggering.

    4,930 firearms (submachine guns, rifles, pistols)

    27,020 grenades

    840 rocket launchers

    300 rockets

    2,000 grenade launching tubes

    6,392 magazines

    1,140,520 rounds of ammunition

    This wasn’t a cache. This wasn’t a smuggling ring’s stash. This was a war arsenal — enough to equip multiple battalions of fighters. And it was sitting on a government-owned jetty, being loaded by people who clearly expected no interruption.

    Who Was It For?

    The weapons were destined for the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) — a militant separatist group fighting for Assam’s independence from India. ULFA’s military wing chief Paresh Baruah was living in Dhaka at the time and was among the 50 persons eventually charged.

    Indian intelligence confirmed the connection. Retired Indian intelligence officer Major General Gaganjit Singh stated the arms were “meant not only for ULFA but also for a few other rebel groups in India’s Northeast to destabilize the country.”

    “The arms were being smuggled under the direct supervision of ULFA leader Paresh Baruah.”

    — Confessional statement of Md Hafizur Rahman, Metropolitan Magistrate, March 2, 2009

    But here’s where it gets worse. ULFA wasn’t operating alone. The weapons didn’t arrive at a government jetty by accident. The Bangladeshi state — or at least, powerful figures within it — was actively facilitating the operation.

    The State’s Fingerprints

    Two key confessional statements, given in 2009 by accused persons Md Hafizur Rahman and Din Mohammad, laid bare the extent of government complicity:

    “Numerous men associated with the BNP-led government and Jatiya Party, including members of parliament, government officials, leaders of National Security Intelligence (NSI) and Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), were aware of the operation.”

    — Confessional statements of Hafizur Rahman and Din Mohammad, March 2009

    The people charged in the case included:

    • Motiur Rahman Nizami — Jamaat-e-Islami chief, then Minister of Industries. The CUFL jetty where the arms were being loaded fell under his ministry.
    • Lutfozzaman Babar — then State Minister for Home Affairs. The same man later sentenced to death for the August 21 grenade attack.
    • Major General Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury — former Director General of NSI.
    • Brigadier General Abdur Rahim — former Director General of NSI.
    • Nurul Amin — former Additional Secretary, Ministry of Industries.
    • Wing Commander Shahabuddin Ahmed — former NSI director.

    A cabinet minister. The state home minister. Two intelligence chiefs. A ministry secretary. This wasn’t a rogue operation. This was the state — or the people running it — using government infrastructure to funnel military-grade weapons to a foreign insurgency.

    The Jetty That Wasn’t Guarded

    Think about this for a moment. The Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited jetty — a government-owned industrial facility — was being used to offload ten truckloads of military weapons. This is a facility that should have had security. Should have had oversight. Should have had someone asking why trucks were being loaded in the dead of night with crates that clearly didn’t contain fertilizer.

    But the Minister of Industries — Motiur Rahman Nizami — had jurisdiction over CUFL. The State Minister for Home Affairs — Babar — had jurisdiction over law enforcement. The NSI and DGFI — Bangladesh’s two premier intelligence agencies — had personnel on site.

    Nobody asked questions because the people who should have been asking questions were the ones enabling the operation.

    The Cover-Up: 13 Years of Silence

    What happened next should sound familiar. It’s the same playbook the BNP government used for the August 21 grenade attack, for Operation Clean Heart, for every act of state-enabled violence during their tenure: delay, deny, deflect.

    April 1, 2004: Arms seized. Initial excitement. Promises of a full investigation.

    2004–2006: The BNP-Jamaat government’s investigation goes nowhere. No charge sheet is filed. Key evidence is not preserved. Witnesses are not interviewed. The case stalls — deliberately.

    2006: The Caretaker Government takes over. The case remains in limbo.

    2007–2008: Under the caretaker government, the investigation is revived. CID begins fresh inquiry. Hafizur Rahman and Din Mohammad give confessional statements implicating government officials and intelligence agencies.

    June 2008: First charge sheet filed — but only against lower-level operatives. The big names are missing.

    2011: Supplementary charge sheet finally adds Nizami, Babar, and others.

    January 2014: Motiur Rahman Nizami sentenced to death (separately, for 1971 war crimes). He’s never tried for the arms haul.

    May 2016: Nizami executed for 1971 war crimes. The arms haul case? Still dragging.

    2017: Thirteen years after the seizure, a Chittagong court finally delivers verdicts.

    The Verdicts — And What They Don’t Tell You

    In January 2017, a Chittagong court delivered its verdict on the arms haul case:

    • Lutfozzaman Babar — Sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment on appeal)
    • Motiur Rahman Nizami — Already executed for war crimes; arms haul case effectively moot
    • Several intelligence officials — Various sentences
    • Paresh Baruah — Sentenced to death in absentia (never apprehended)

    Thirteen years. That’s how long it took to get a verdict on the largest arms seizure in South Asian history. And even then, the full picture never emerged.

    Notice who’s missing from the charge sheet. Notice whose names never appeared in the investigation files during the BNP era. Notice that the sitting Prime Minister’s son — Tarique Rahman, operating from Hawa Bhaban — was never charged, despite the fact that his political network enabled the weapons pipeline.

    Hafizur Rahman’s Missing Confession

    Perhaps the most damning detail of the entire case is what didn’t happen to the evidence.

    When Hafizur Rahman and Din Mohammad gave their confessional statements in March 2009, they revealed that:

    1. The operation was supervised by ULFA leader Paresh Baruah, who was living freely in Dhaka
    2. Numerous government officials and intelligence officers were aware of and complicit in the operation
    3. Hafizur’s earlier confessions had never been recorded
    4. Officials had threatened him with death if he spoke about what he knew

    “Hafizur’s earlier confessions were never recorded, and officials warned him against making statements — threatening him with death.”

    — Court records, Metropolitan Magistrate, March 2009

    Let that sink in. A man who witnessed one of the largest weapons trafficking operations in history tried to tell authorities what he knew. His statements were deliberately not recorded. He was threatened with death if he talked. And the government that should have been investigating was the same government whose officials were involved.

    This isn’t incompetence. This is obstruction of justice at the state level.

    The Pattern: One Playbook, Every Time

    If you’ve been reading this series, you already know the pattern. The Chittagong Arms Haul isn’t an isolated case. It’s part of a systematic approach to governance that defined BNP rule from 2001 to 2006:

    Step 1: State actors commit or enable a crime.

    Step 2: The government forms a “probe” that goes nowhere.

    Step 3: Evidence is destroyed, witnesses are threatened, confessions are suppressed.

    Step 4: A scapegoat is manufactured — Joj Mia for the grenade attack, Anwarullah Chowdhury for the Shamsunnahar Hall raid, low-level operatives for the arms haul.

    Step 5: The political principals — Babar, Tarique, Khaleda — are shielded until the 1/11 caretaker government forces accountability.

    Step 6: After July 2024, every conviction is overturned on “political motivation” grounds.

    The arms haul case follows this pattern exactly. The only difference is the sheer scale of what was being enabled: not a grenade attack, not a police raid, but the arming of a foreign insurgency using government infrastructure and intelligence agency complicity.

    The Intelligence Agencies: NSI and DGFI

    The involvement of Bangladesh’s two premier intelligence agencies in this case deserves special attention.

    The National Security Intelligence (NSI) — Bangladesh’s civilian intelligence agency — had two former Directors General charged in the case: Major General Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury and Brigadier General Abdur Rahim. A former NSI director, Wing Commander Shahabuddin Ahmed, was also charged.

    The Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) — Bangladesh’s military intelligence — was also implicated, though fewer DGFI officers were formally charged.

    These are not rogue agents. These are the heads of Bangladesh’s intelligence apparatus. The same DGFI that would later be accused of running torture cells. The same NSI that was supposed to be monitoring foreign threats, not facilitating them.

    When the people tasked with protecting national security are the ones enabling the smuggling of 1.14 million rounds of ammunition through a government jetty, the term “security state” takes on a very different meaning.

    The ULFA Connection: A Foreign Insurgency, Enabled by Bangladesh

    The ULFA dimension of this story is often underplayed, but it’s critical.

    ULFA — the United Liberation Front of Asom — was waging an armed insurgency against the Indian state, seeking independence for Assam. The group was designated as a terrorist organization by India and had been responsible for numerous attacks, assassinations, and kidnappings.

    Bangladesh, under the BNP-Jamaat government, was providing ULFA with:

    • Safe haven: ULFA’s military chief Paresh Baruah lived openly in Dhaka
    • Logistical support: Government jetties, warehouses, and transport infrastructure
    • Intelligence cover: NSI and DGFI awareness and facilitation
    • Weapons pipeline: The Chittagong haul was not the first shipment — it was simply the one that got caught

    This wasn’t passive tolerance. This was active state sponsorship of a foreign terrorist organization. If the roles were reversed — if Bangladesh had discovered India was funnelling weapons to insurgents on Bangladeshi soil — the diplomatic consequences would have been catastrophic.

    But because the BNP-Jamaat government controlled the narrative, because the investigation was deliberately stalled for years, and because the international community had limited visibility into Bangladesh’s internal affairs, the full implications of this case never received the global attention they deserved.

    What India Knew — And What It Didn’t Say

    Indian intelligence was well aware of ULFA’s operations in Bangladesh. The Indian government had repeatedly raised concerns about insurgent safe havens on Bangladeshi territory. But the diplomatic calculus was complicated:

    • India needed Bangladesh’s cooperation on border security, trade, and counter-terrorism
    • Publicly accusing a neighboring government of sponsoring terrorism against India would have triggered a diplomatic crisis
    • The BNP government consistently denied ULFA’s presence in Bangladesh, despite evidence to the contrary

    The result was a quiet, persistent tension that never fully erupted into public confrontation — but which India remembered. When the 2008 election brought the Awami League to power, one of the first priorities was cracking down on insurgent safe havens, precisely because the BNP era had demonstrated what happened when the state enabled rather than confronted such groups.

    The Numbers That Should Haunt Bangladesh

    Let’s put this in perspective:

    🇧🇩 4,930 firearms — that’s roughly the entire arsenal of 2-3 infantry battalions

    🇧🇩 27,020 grenades — more grenades than many small countries possess in their entire military stockpiles

    🇧🇩 840 rocket launchers — shoulder-fired weapons capable of downing aircraft or destroying armored vehicles

    🇧🇩 1.14 million rounds of ammunition — enough to sustain a combat operation for months

    🇧🇩 10 trucks — loaded at a government jetty, under the noses of two intelligence agencies

    And this is what they caught. How many shipments got through before April 1, 2004? How many truckloads of weapons were successfully delivered to ULFA and other insurgent groups? How many Indian citizens died from weapons that transited through Bangladesh with state complicity?

    We will never know the full number. But we know enough to understand that the Chittagong Arms Haul was not an anomaly. It was business as usual for a state that had normalized the enabling of terrorism as a tool of foreign policy.

    What Happened After 1/11

    The caretaker government that took over on January 11, 2007, inherited this case — along with dozens of others that had been deliberately stalled. Under the new administration:

    • The investigation was revived and expanded
    • Confessional statements were finally recorded
    • Charge sheets were filed against senior officials, including ministers and intelligence chiefs
    • The case actually moved through the courts

    This is what accountability looks like when a captured state is temporarily freed from the grip of its captors. For all its flaws, for all the criticisms of the 1/11 caretaker government, one fact remains: the Chittagong Arms Haul case only progressed because the BNP government was removed from power.

    Under BNP rule, the case was dead. Under the caretaker government, it moved forward. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a confession.

    The 2024 Erasure

    And now, of course, the predictable conclusion. After the July 2024 regime change, the BNP-aligned judiciary has been systematically overturning every conviction from the 1/11 era. The arms haul case — thirteen years in the making, built on confessional statements and evidence that the BNP government tried to destroy — is being treated as “politically motivated.”

    Babar, who was sentenced to death for the grenade attack, has been acquitted. Tarique Rahman, who was never even charged in the arms haul case despite his central role in the political network that enabled it, is now Prime Minister. The intelligence officers who facilitated the operation are free. The case files are gathering dust.

    The largest arms haul in South Asian history. Seized on Bangladeshi soil. Enabled by Bangladeshi government officials. Facilitated by Bangladeshi intelligence agencies. At a Bangladeshi government jetty. And the people responsible have been systematically cleared of all consequences.

    Why This Matters Now

    You might be thinking: this was 2004. The weapons were for ULFA, not for use in Bangladesh. Why should anyone care now?

    Here’s why:

    First, the arms haul reveals the nature of the state the BNP built. A state where intelligence agencies smuggle weapons for foreign insurgent groups. A state where cabinet ministers use their ministries as logistics hubs for terrorism. A state where the rule of law is a punchline.

    Second, the cover-up reveals the same playbook they’ve used every time. Delay. Destroy evidence. Threaten witnesses. Manufacture scapegoats. Shield the principals. And when accountability finally catches up — scream “political motivation” and overturn everything.

    Third, the erasure reveals what happens when a government is allowed to rewrite history. The Chittagong Arms Haul should be in every textbook. Every Bangladeshi should know that their government’s intelligence agencies helped arm a foreign insurgency. But the case has been memory-holed, the convictions overturned, and the principals rehabilitated.

    Fourth, and most critically: the same people are back in power. Tarique Rahman — who ran the political machine from Hawa Bhaban — is now Prime Minister. The BNP, which stalled this investigation for years, now controls the judiciary that’s overturning the convictions. The institutional memory of state-enabled terrorism has been deliberately erased.

    If a government can smuggle 27,000 grenades and 4,930 firearms through a government jetty, threaten witnesses with death to cover it up, stall the investigation for three years, and then overturn every conviction once they return to power — what exactly is off-limits?

    The answer, as we’ve seen again and again in this series, is: nothing. Nothing is off-limits. Not the rule of law. Not the justice system. Not the memory of what they did.

    The Chittagong Arms Haul isn’t just a case study in state-enabled terrorism. It’s a mirror. And right now, the people staring back from that mirror are running the country.

    Sources

    • Confessional statements of Md Hafizur Rahman and Din Mohammad, Metropolitan Magistrate, March 2, 2009
    • Chittagong Court verdict, January 2017
    • India Today — “Chittagong arms haul case: All you need to know” (February 2023)
    • Major General Gaganjit Singh (Retd.) — Indian intelligence confirmation of ULFA connection
    • The Daily Star — Coverage of Chittagong arms haul case proceedings (2004-2017)
    • Banglapedia — Anti-Corruption Commission entry
    • Human Rights Watch — Bangladesh reports (2004-2007)
    • WikiLeaks — US Embassy cables, Dhaka (2004-2008)
    • The Business Standard — BNP-era coverage
    • Dhaka Tribune — Trial coverage and aftermath

    Bangladesh Untold — Because history remembers, even when they want you to forget.

    This is Article #89 in the Bangladesh Untold series. Read the full archive at bangladeshuntold.org

  • The Spies Who Served the Party: How Bangladesh’s Intelligence Agencies Became Weapons of the State

    They were supposed to protect the nation. Instead, they helped plan a grenade attack that killed 24 people, facilitated the largest arms smuggling operation in the country’s history, fabricated evidence to protect the guilty, and tortured innocents into false confessions. This is the story of how Bangladesh’s intelligence agencies — DGFI and NSI — were turned into the ruling party’s private enforcers.

    You have heard about the grenade attack. You have heard about the arms haul. You have heard about the “Joj Mia” fabrication and the washed crime scenes and the one-man commissions.

    But you haven’t heard the connective tissue. The thread that runs through all of it. The reason these atrocities were possible — not just tolerated, not just permitted, but actively facilitated — is that Bangladesh’s two premier intelligence agencies, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) and the National Security Intelligence (NSI), were repurposed from protecting the nation to protecting the ruling party.

    This is not an accusation. This is what the court records say. This is what confessional statements confirm. This is what US diplomatic cables documented in real time. This is what the evidence — evidence that was gathered after the BNP government fell, after the caretaker government took over, after the institutions that were supposed to investigate finally could — proves beyond any reasonable doubt.

    And it has never been told as one story. Until now.

    What DGFI and NSI Actually Are

    Before we get into what they did, let me explain what they are.

    DGFI — Directorate General of Forces Intelligence is Bangladesh’s military intelligence agency. It is supposed to be the country’s eyes and ears on external threats: foreign military movements, espionage, sabotage, terrorist networks operating across borders. It was modeled after India’s RAW and Pakistan’s ISI — professional intelligence services designed to protect national security.

    NSI — National Security Intelligence is the civilian equivalent. It is supposed to handle domestic intelligence: internal security threats, counterintelligence, monitoring groups that might destabilize the country. It reports to the Prime Minister’s Office.

    Both agencies are powerful. Both operate with near-total secrecy. Both have budgets that are not publicly disclosed. Both have the authority to surveil, detain, and interrogate. And both, between 2001 and 2006, were turned into instruments of the BNP-Jamaat coalition government.

    This is not a matter of a few bad actors. This is structural capture. The heads of both agencies were appointed by the ruling party. They answered to the ruling party. And when the ruling party needed something done — something illegal, something violent, something that would destroy evidence and protect the guilty — they did it.

    August 21, 2004: The Intelligence Agencies Help Plan a Massacre

    Let’s start with the most damning evidence. Because what happened on August 21, 2004 was not just a terrorist attack. It was a state-facilitated assassination attempt, and the intelligence agencies were in the room.

    The 2018 court verdict — the one that convicted 19 people to death and 19 to life imprisonment — established the following chain of command:

    Brigadier General (Retd) Abdur Rahim, then Director General of NSI, participated in the planning meeting at Hawa Bhaban — the political office of Tarique Rahman, son of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. He was sentenced to death for his role.

    Brigadier General (Retd) Rezzaqul Haider Chowdhury, then Director General of DGFI, also participated in the planning. He too was sentenced to death.

    Let me say that again, because it bears repeating. The heads of both of Bangladesh’s premier intelligence agencies — the men whose job was to protect the nation from exactly this kind of attack — sat in a room where the assassination of the Leader of the Opposition was being planned. And they did not stop it. They facilitated it.

    The attack itself was carried out by Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) operatives. But the planning, the coordination, the security arrangements that allowed 13 military-grade Arges grenades to be thrown into a crowd of 20,000 people on one of the most prominent streets in the capital — that required state-level intelligence support. The kind of support that only DGFI and NSI could provide.

    The confessional statement of Mufti Abdul Hannan, HuJI’s chief, confirmed that the operation received “full administrative backing” from Lutfozzaman Babar, then State Minister for Home Affairs. Babar assured HuJI operatives that they would face no consequences. And he could make that assurance because he knew — because the intelligence agencies that were supposed to prevent the attack were helping to plan it.

    Thirteen grenades. Twenty-four dead. Over five hundred injured. And the heads of both intelligence agencies were in on it from the start.

    The Cover-Up: Intelligence Agencies as Evidence Destroyers

    But the intelligence agencies’ role did not end with the attack. In fact, their most sustained and systematic contribution came after the grenades exploded — in the cover-up.

    Within hours of the attack, the BNP government launched what can only be described as an intelligence-coordinated destruction of evidence. The crime scene on Bangabandhu Avenue — one of the most significant terrorist attack sites in the country’s history — was washed with water and detergent. Recovered grenades were deliberately destroyed rather than preserved for forensic analysis. Volunteer security groups who normally secured rooftops during rallies had been barred from the area before the attack — the same rooftops from which the grenades were thrown.

    This was not amateur hour. This was a professional intelligence operation. You don’t wash a crime scene with detergent by accident. You don’t destroy recovered grenades by accident. You don’t clear rooftops of civilian security by accident. These are the actions of trained intelligence operatives executing a coordinated plan to eliminate the evidence.

    Then came the “Joj Mia” fabrication.

    When the public outcry became impossible to ignore, the CID — operating under the direction of the Home Ministry and with the full knowledge of the intelligence establishment — produced a convenient scapegoat: Jamal Ahmed, known as “Joj Mia”, a petty criminal from Noakhali. He was arrested on June 10, 2005, tortured in custody, and coerced into giving a false confessional statement under Section 164 on June 26, 2005.

    The CID claimed Joj Mia and 14 members of the “Seven Star” criminal group had carried out the attack. It was a complete fabrication. The investigation went nowhere for two full years — because the intelligence agencies, who should have been solving the case, were instead actively directing the cover-up.

    Inspector General of Police Khoda Baksh Chowdhury was later convicted for his role in misleading the investigation. So were SP Ruhul Amin and ASPs Abdur Rashid and Munshi Atikur Rahman of the CID. But these were mid-level officers following orders. The real architects of the cover-up were the intelligence chiefs who sat in Hawa Bhaban and made sure the investigation went exactly where they wanted it: into a dead end.

    The Chittagong Arms Haul: Intelligence Agencies Smuggled Weapons for Terrorists

    If you think the intelligence agencies’ role in the grenade attack was bad, wait until you hear about the arms haul.

    On the night of April 1, 2004, police and Coast Guard, acting on a tip-off, interrupted the loading of weapons onto ten trucks at the Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited (CUFL) jetty on the Karnaphuli River. What they found was the largest arms cache ever seized in Bangladesh’s history:

    • 4,930 sophisticated firearms
    • 27,020 grenades
    • 840 rocket launchers
    • 300 rockets
    • 2,000 grenade launching tubes
    • 6,392 magazines
    • 1,140,520 rounds of ammunition

    This was not a criminal smuggling operation. This was a state-level intelligence operation. And the evidence proves it.

    Two accused — Md Hafizur Rahman and Din Mohammad — submitted confessional statements to the Metropolitan Magistrate on March 2, 2009, stating that the arms were being smuggled under the direct supervision of ULFA leader Paresh Baruah and that “numerous men associated with the BNP-led government” — including members of parliament, government officials, and leaders of National Security Intelligence (NSI) and DGFI — were aware of the operation.

    Not just aware. Involved.

    The very agencies tasked with preventing weapons from reaching insurgents were facilitating the flow of those weapons. NSI and DGFI officers knew that 27,020 grenades — enough to arm a small war — were being loaded onto trucks at a government jetty. And they did nothing to stop it. Because they were part of it.

    Among those charged in the case were:

    • Lutfozzaman Babar — State Minister for Home Affairs
    • Major General Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury — former DG of NSI (yes, the same man later sentenced to death for the grenade attack)
    • Brigadier General Abdur Rahim — former DG of NSI (also sentenced to death for the grenade attack)
    • Wing Commander Shahabuddin Ahmed — former NSI director

    Two of the men who planned the grenade attack — Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury and Abdur Rahim — were also involved in the arms smuggling operation. The same intelligence chiefs who helped plan the assassination of the opposition leader were simultaneously allowing one of the largest weapons shipments in South Asian history to pass through a government facility.

    And just like the grenade attack, the arms haul case ended in acquittal. On December 18, 2024, the High Court acquitted Babar and five others. On January 14, 2025, the High Court acquitted them in the Arms Act case as well. Paresh Baruah’s death sentence was reduced to 14 years. Four others had their sentences reduced to 10 years.

    The weapons were intended for ULFA — the United Liberation Front of Asom — an insurgent group fighting for Assam’s independence from India. Indian intelligence confirmed the connection. A retired Indian intelligence officer, Major General Gaganjit Singh, confirmed the arms were “meant not only for ULFA but also for a few other rebel groups in India’s Northeast to destabilize the country.”

    So Bangladesh’s intelligence agencies were not just failing to prevent terrorism. They were actively facilitating the arming of insurgent groups in a neighboring country, using government facilities and state resources to do it. This is the kind of thing that starts wars. And it happened under the watch of DGFI and NSI.

    The DGFI Torture House: When Intelligence Agencies Become Instruments of Terror

    But the intelligence agencies didn’t just facilitate attacks and smuggle weapons. They also operated what can only be described as a torture program against domestic political opponents.

    DGFI’s record during the BNP era (2001-2006) is one of systematic political persecution. The agency was used to surveil, intimidate, detain, and torture members of the political opposition, journalists, and anyone who posed a threat to the ruling party’s grip on power.

    During Operation Clean Heart (October 2002 – January 2003), the military-intelligence apparatus was deployed against civilians with devastating results. Over 11,000 people were arrested. At least 44 people died in custody — and those are the official numbers; Human Rights Watch documented at least 60 extrajudicial killings. The youngest victim was 16 years old. The oldest was 73.

    When the operation ended, the BNP government passed the Joint Drive Indemnity Ordinance — a law that gave complete legal immunity to every security personnel member who participated. They killed dozens of people in custody, and then they made it illegal to investigate those deaths. The High Court eventually struck down the ordinance in November 2015, but by then, over a decade had passed and the evidence had gone cold.

    DGFI was also deeply involved in the creation and operation of RAB — the Rapid Action Battalion. Formed in 2004, RAB was drawn from the military, police, and intelligence services. By October 2006, RAB had killed 367 people in “crossfire” incidents. By March 2010, the kill count had reached 622. And DGFI officers were embedded in RAB’s operations, providing intelligence for targets and then helping to cover up the killings.

    The United States Treasury Department eventually imposed Global Magnitsky sanctions on RAB and seven current and former officers on December 10, 2021, citing “serious human rights violations” including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and torture. Following the sanctions, extrajudicial killings and disappearances “dropped dramatically” — which tells you everything you need to know about how dependent these abuses were on US-enabled intelligence cooperation.

    The WikiLeaks Cables: What American Diplomats Saw

    We don’t have to rely solely on Bangladeshi sources to understand what was happening. The US Embassy in Dhaka was watching. And what they saw — and documented in classified cables that were later released by WikiLeaks — confirms the worst.

    A 2005 US diplomatic cable described Tarique Rahman as a “symbol of kleptocratic government” and coined the moniker “Dark Prince” for his involvement in what the cable called “violent politics.” But the cables also documented the broader intelligence apparatus.

    The cables noted that DGFI and NSI were being used as political instruments rather than national security agencies. Intelligence resources that should have been directed at genuine threats — militant groups like JMB and HuJI, which were bombing the country with impunity — were instead redirected toward surveilling opposition politicians, intimidating journalists, and protecting the business interests of the ruling family and its associates.

    This is not just a Bangladeshi problem. Intelligence agencies being captured by ruling parties is a pattern seen in authoritarian states around the world. What makes Bangladesh’s case particularly egregious is the scale of the capture and the consequences it produced: a grenade attack on the opposition, the largest arms smuggling operation in the country’s history, a systematic cover-up, and a trail of bodies that stretches across every branch of the security apparatus.

    The Pattern: How Intelligence Capture Works

    Here is what the evidence shows, and it is crucial to understand this as a system, not a series of isolated incidents:

    Step 1: Appoint loyalists. The BNP government appointed intelligence chiefs who were personally loyal to the ruling party, not to the nation. Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury (DGFI) and Abdur Rahim (NSI) were not career intelligence professionals chosen for their competence. They were political appointees who owed their positions to the ruling family.

    Step 2: Redirect resources. Intelligence agencies that should have been monitoring terrorist threats were instead monitoring opposition politicians, journalists, and civil society. The same agencies that failed to prevent the August 21 grenade attack and the August 17 JMB bombings were fully resourced when it came to tracking Awami League activities.

    Step 3: Facilitate operations. When the ruling party needed something done — a grenade attack, an arms shipment, a cover-up — the intelligence agencies provided the logistical support, the security clearances, and the operational cover.

    Step 4: Destroy evidence. When operations went wrong or attracted public attention, the same agencies destroyed evidence, fabricated alternative narratives, and tortured innocents into false confessions.

    Step 5: Protect the guilty. And when the courts eventually caught up — as they did in 2018 with the grenade attack verdicts — the intelligence chiefs who had been convicted were eventually acquitted by a judiciary that now answers to the same party they once served.

    This is the five-step playbook for intelligence capture. And it worked. For five years, between 2001 and 2006, Bangladesh’s intelligence agencies operated as an extension of the BNP-Jamaat coalition. They were not protecting the country. They were protecting the ruling party. And the country paid the price.

    The Aftermath: What the Caretaker Government Found

    When the caretaker government took over on January 11, 2007 — the date that BNP now calls a “dark chapter” — one of their first actions was to investigate the intelligence agencies.

    What they found was devastating. The CID, now operating without political interference, launched fresh investigations into the grenade attack and the arms haul. Mufti Hannan, who had been in BNP custody since 2005 but had never been linked to the August 21 case, finally confessed. The real perpetrators were identified. The “Joj Mia” fabrication was exposed.

    The caretaker government also arrested Lutfozzaman Babar on charges of illegal firearms possession. They detained Tarique Rahman. They filed cases against Shamim Iskander. They initiated investigations that would eventually produce the 2018 verdicts — verdicts that established, in a court of law, that Bangladesh’s intelligence chiefs had helped plan a grenade attack on the opposition.

    And now? Every single one of those convictions has been overturned. Every single one of those cases has been acquitted. The intelligence chiefs who planned the attack walk free. The State Minister who facilitated it is a free man. And the “Dark Prince” who sat at the center of it all — whose political office was the meeting place, whose intelligence chiefs were the facilitators, whose party was the beneficiary — is now the Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

    The Current Threat: Intelligence Agencies Under BNP 2.0

    Here is what should terrify you.

    The BNP is back in power. The same party that captured DGFI and NSI between 2001 and 2006 now controls them again. The same institutional vulnerabilities exist. The same patterns of political appointments, resource redirection, and operational facilitation are possible — and, given the track record, probable.

    Between 2001 and 2006, we saw what happens when intelligence agencies serve a party instead of a nation:

    • They help plan attacks on the opposition
    • They facilitate weapons smuggling through government facilities
    • They fabricate evidence to protect the guilty
    • They torture innocents into false confessions
    • They cover up crime scenes with detergent
    • They destroy recovered grenades rather than preserve them
    • They receive indemnity laws that make their crimes legal

    And when they are finally caught, the courts — now also under the ruling party’s influence — acquit every single one of them.

    The institutions that are supposed to provide checks and balances — the intelligence agencies, the police, the judiciary — have all been captured at least once by the BNP. The same party is now in power. The same family is running the government. The same apparatus of control is being rebuilt.

    There is no reason to believe it will be different this time. There is no structural reform that has been implemented. No independent oversight mechanism that has been created. No legal safeguard that prevents the next set of intelligence chiefs from being appointed for their loyalty rather than their competence.

    DGFI and NSI were weapons once. They can be weapons again.

    What International Observers Said

    The international community was not silent during this period. They documented everything. And their documentation confirms the intelligence capture thesis.

    Human Rights Watch documented the extrajudicial killings and the use of intelligence agencies for political persecution in multiple reports, including “Judge, Jury, and Executioner” (2006) and “Crossfire” (2011).

    The International Crisis Group noted in its reports that the BNP-led coalition government “did not target radical Islamist groups” and that Bangladesh’s political mainstream “has either deliberately used it [JMB] for narrow political ends.” The intelligence agencies, rather than investigating the growing JMB threat, were redirecting resources toward political surveillance.

    Amnesty International documented the use of torture by intelligence and security agencies, including the torture of Joj Mia and others into false confessions.

    The US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report documented the post-election violence against minorities in 2001, noting that “at least 10 Hindu women were raped and a number of Hindu homes were looted by low-level BNP workers” — violence that intelligence agencies should have prevented but instead facilitated through inaction and complicity.

    None of this is disputed. None of this is speculation. This is the documented record of international organizations, foreign governments, and Bangladeshi courts.

    The Numbers Don’t Lie

    Let me give you the numbers one more time, because they tell the story that no amount of political spin can erase:

    • 2 — the number of intelligence agency chiefs (DGFI and NSI) who participated in planning the August 21 grenade attack
    • 13 — the number of military-grade grenades thrown into a crowd of 20,000 people with intelligence agency facilitation
    • 24 — the number of people killed in that attack
    • 500+ — the number of people injured
    • 27,020 — the number of grenades smuggled through a government jetty with intelligence agency knowledge
    • 4,930 — the number of firearms in the same shipment
    • 1,140,520 — the number of rounds of ammunition
    • 44+ — the number of people who died in custody during Operation Clean Heart, facilitated by military intelligence
    • 367 — the number of people killed by RAB by October 2006, with DGFI officers embedded in operations
    • 5 — the number of consecutive years Bangladesh ranked as the most corrupt country in the world while these intelligence agencies served the party instead of the nation
    • 84 — the number of cases filed against Tarique Rahman, all now acquitted
    • 0 — the number of intelligence officials held accountable for their role in facilitating the grenade attack, the arms haul, or the cover-up

    Zero accountability. Zero consequences. Zero structural reform.

    The spies who served the party are still out there. The agencies they controlled are still operating. And the party they served is back in power.

    Why This Matters Now

    You might think this is history. You might think that what happened between 2001 and 2006 cannot happen again. You would be wrong.

    The institutional capture of DGFI and NSI was not a one-time event. It was a demonstration of how easily Bangladesh’s intelligence apparatus can be turned into a weapon of the ruling party. No structural reforms have been implemented since then. No independent oversight has been established. No legal safeguards prevent the next set of intelligence chiefs from being political appointees.

    BNP was in power from 2001 to 2006. The intelligence agencies served the party. Then they were reformed — temporarily — under the caretaker government. Then Awami League was in power from 2009 to 2024, and the same institutional vulnerabilities existed. DGFI was accused of enforced disappearances, torture, and political surveillance under Awami League too. The difference is one of degree, not of kind.

    And now BNP is back. The same party. The same family. The same intelligence apparatus. The same absence of safeguards.

    The grenade attack was not an accident. The arms haul was not a failure of intelligence. The cover-up was not a coincidence. The “Joj Mia” fabrication was not an error. These were operations, carried out by professionals, directed by intelligence chiefs who were serving a political master rather than the nation.

    Bangladesh’s intelligence agencies were designed to protect the country. Between 2001 and 2006, they were used to attack it. And the people who did it — the intelligence chiefs, the State Minister, the ruling family — have faced exactly zero consequences.

    The next time someone tells you that 1/11 was a “dark chapter,” ask them about the five dark years that preceded it. The years when Bangladesh’s spies served the party, helped plan massacres, smuggled weapons, destroyed evidence, and tortured innocents. The years when the agencies that were supposed to protect the nation instead became its greatest threat.

    The spies who served the party are still out there. And the party they served is back in power.

    Bangladesh deserves to know.

    Sources

    • Speedy Trial Tribunal-1, Dhaka — Verdict on August 21 Grenade Attack Case (October 10, 2018): Sentenced Lutfozzaman Babar, Abdus Salam Pintu, Major General (Retd) Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury, and Brigadier General (Retd) Abdur Rahim to death; Tarique Rahman and Harris Chowdhury to life imprisonment
    • Confessional statement of Mufti Abdul Hannan (November 2007, 2011)
    • Confessional statements of Md Hafizur Rahman and Din Mohammad — Metropolitan Magistrate (March 2, 2009)
    • Human Rights Watch — “Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Torture and Extrajudicial Killings by Bangladesh’s Elite Security Force” (December 2006)
    • Human Rights Watch — “Crossfire: Continued Human Rights Abuses by Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion” (May 2011)
    • International Crisis Group — Asia Report No. 121: “Bangladesh Today” (October 2006)
    • International Crisis Group — Asia Report No. 187: “The Threat from Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh” (March 2010)
    • International Crisis Group — Asia Report No. 277 (April 2016)
    • US Embassy Cable (2005) — Released by WikiLeaks: Tarique Rahman described as “symbol of kleptocratic government” and “Dark Prince”
    • US Treasury Department — Global Magnitsky Sanctions on RAB (December 10, 2021)
    • Amnesty International — “Bangladesh: Attacks on members of the Hindu minority” (AI Index: ASA 13/006/2001, December 2001)
    • Transparency International — Corruption Perceptions Index (2001-2005)
    • High Court of Bangladesh — Acquittal of grenade attack accused (December 1, 2024)
    • High Court of Bangladesh — Acquittal of arms haul accused (December 18, 2024; January 14, 2025)
    • High Court of Bangladesh — Joint Drive Indemnity Ordinance declared illegal (November 2015)
    • The Daily Star — Coverage of Shamsunnahar Hall raid, Operation Clean Heart, arms haul, and grenade attack (2002-2025)
    • Dhaka Tribune — Coverage of Shamim Iskander, acquittals, and current political developments (2014-2026)
    • India Today — Confirmed ULFA connection with ex-Indian intelligence officer testimony (February 2023)

  • Five Years at Number One: How Bangladesh Became the World’s Most Corrupt Country and Nobody Talks About It

    2001. 2002. 2003. 2004. 2005. Five consecutive years. Five first-place finishes. Bangladesh wasn’t just corrupt under BNP-Jamaat rule — it was the most corrupt nation on Earth. And the people who ran that government are back in power today.

    There is a number that should haunt every conversation about Bangladesh’s political history, and it is this: five.

    Five consecutive years. From 2001 to 2005. Every single year that Khaleda Zia’s BNP-Jamaat coalition governed Bangladesh, Transparency International ranked the country as the most corrupt in the world.

    Not “one of the most corrupt.” Not “struggling with corruption.” Not “has corruption problems.” The most corrupt. Number one. The bottom of the list. The worst of the worst. Five times in a row.

    Let me put that in perspective. There are roughly 200 countries in the world. Some are war zones. Some are run by dictators. Some have no functioning government at all. And for five straight years, Bangladesh — a country of 140 million people with a functioning bureaucracy, a parliament, a judiciary, and a free press — ranked below every single one of them.

    This is not ancient history. The people who presided over that distinction are running Bangladesh right now. And nobody — nobody — is talking about it.

    What the Corruption Perceptions Index Actually Measures

    Before we get into the specifics, let me explain what Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index is and why it matters.

    The CPI is not a opinion poll. It is not a political hit job. It is not compiled by opposition politicians or foreign intelligence agencies with axes to grind. It is the world’s most widely cited metric for measuring public sector corruption, used by governments, international organizations, investors, and development agencies around the globe.

    The CPI aggregates data from multiple independent sources — including the World Economic Forum, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, the World Bank, and others — to produce a composite score for each country. The methodology is transparent, peer-reviewed, and consistent year over year. Countries are scored from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean). The lower the score, the more corrupt the public sector is perceived to be.

    When Bangladesh scored a 1.2 out of 10 in 2005, that wasn’t Transparency International’s opinion. That was the collective assessment of every major institution that measures governance, combined into a single number. It was the mathematical expression of a reality that every Bangladeshi lived through.

    The Scores: Year by Year

    Here are the numbers. Read them slowly.

    • 2001 — Bangladesh ranked #1 most corrupt in the world. Score: 0.4 out of 10. This was the year BNP won the October election and Khaleda Zia became Prime Minister.
    • 2002 — Bangladesh ranked #1 most corrupt in the world. Score: 1.2 out of 10. This was the year Operation Clean Heart killed 44 people in custody and the BNP government passed an indemnity law to protect the killers.
    • 2003 — Bangladesh ranked #1 most corrupt in the world. Score: 1.3 out of 10. This was the year Transparency International Bangladesh released its own survey showing that Bangladeshi households paid more in bribes than in taxes.
    • 2004 — Bangladesh ranked #1 most corrupt in the world (tied with Haiti at 1.5 out of 10). This was the year of the August 21 grenade attack that killed 24 people and the Chittagong arms haul that seized 27,020 grenades from a government jetty.
    • 2005 — Bangladesh ranked #1 most corrupt in the world (tied with Chad at 1.7 out of 10). This was the year JMB bombed 63 districts in a single day, Tarique Rahman was running Hawa Bhaban as a parallel government, and the US Embassy was calling him a “symbol of kleptocratic government.”

    Five years. Five last-place finishes. A score that never rose above 1.7 out of 10.

    To put this in context: in 2005, Somalia — a country that literally had no functioning central government — scored higher than Bangladesh. Afghanistan — which was in the middle of a full-scale war — scored higher than Bangladesh. Iraq — which was under foreign military occupation and fighting an active insurgency — scored higher than Bangladesh.

    Let that settle. Bangladesh had a parliament, a prime minister, a cabinet, a judiciary, police, military, intelligence agencies, and a complete government apparatus. And it was ranked more corrupt than countries that had no government at all.

    Why This Wasn’t an Accident

    Here is the argument that BNP supporters always make: “Corruption was always there. It’s not a BNP problem. It’s a Bangladesh problem.”

    Let me destroy that argument with two facts.

    Fact one: Bangladesh had appeared on the CPI before BNP took power. In 1999, under Awami League rule, Bangladesh ranked 15th from the bottom. In 2000, it ranked 11th from the bottom. Not great. Not good. But not the worst. Not number one. Not even close to number one.

    Fact two: In 2006, after BNP’s term ended and the caretaker government took over, Bangladesh’s CPI ranking immediately began to recover. By 2007, the score had risen to 2.0. By 2008, it was 2.3. By 2010, it had reached 2.4. Still bad. Still in the bottom quarter. But no longer dead last.

    The pattern is unmistakable. Bangladesh’s corruption spiked to world-worst levels during the precise years that BNP-Jamaat held power. It improved when they left. This is not a coincidence. This is cause and effect.

    And the mechanism was not mysterious. BNP didn’t just fail to control corruption. BNP institutionalized corruption.

    Hawa Bhaban: The Corruption Headquarters

    You cannot understand Bangladesh’s five-year reign as the world’s most corrupt country without understanding Hawa Bhaban.

    Hawa Bhaban was the BNP chairperson’s office — the political headquarters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. But under Khaleda Zia’s 2001-2006 government, it functioned as something else entirely: a parallel power center where government contracts were traded for bribes, political appointments were sold to the highest bidder, and the country’s resources were funneled into private hands.

    At the center of it all was Tarique Rahman — Khaleda Zia’s eldest son, who operated from Hawa Bhaban with what can only be described as brazen impunity. US Embassy cables released by WikiLeaks described Tarique as a “symbol of kleptocratic government” and noted that his office was “frequently accused of acting as a parallel power center where government contracts were influenced in exchange for bribes.”

    The US Embassy didn’t mince words. In a 2005 cable, diplomats wrote that Tarique had “a reputation for violent politics” and that his influence was so pervasive that it had become a “law unto itself.” The cable, which was classified as “confidential” before WikiLeaks published it, was not political commentary. It was the professional assessment of American diplomats stationed in Dhaka, reporting to Washington through official channels.

    But Tarique wasn’t working alone. Hawa Bhaban was an ecosystem:

    • Giasuddin Al Mamun — Tarique’s closest associate and business partner, later convicted of money laundering alongside him. Mamun was the front man, the deal-maker, the person who turned political influence into cash.
    • Shamim Iskander — Khaleda Zia’s younger brother, who turned Biman Bangladesh Airlines into his personal ATM, extracting Tk 40 crore in commissions and nearly bankrupting the national carrier.
    • Saiful Islam Duke — Khaleda’s nephew, who leveraged family connections for personal enrichment.
    • A network of businessmen, bureaucrats, and political operators who paid for access and received contracts, appointments, and protection in return.

    Hawa Bhaban was not a side operation. It was the operation. The official government — the cabinet, the ministries, the civil service — existed to implement decisions that were made in Hawa Bhaban. The bribe economy didn’t leak around the edges of the system. It was the system.

    The Scale of the Corruption

    Corruption under BNP-Jamaat rule was not limited to a few bad actors. It was systemic, structural, and staggering in its scope. Let me walk you through what Transparency International Bangladesh itself documented during this period.

    In 2003, TIB released its National Household Survey on Corruption. The findings were extraordinary:

    • Bangladeshi households paid more in bribes than in taxes. Let me say that again: the average Bangladeshi family paid more money to corrupt officials than they paid to the government in taxes.
    • 97.8% of households that interacted with the police reported paying bribes.
    • 88% of households interacting with the judiciary reported paying bribes.
    • 75% of households interacting with land administration reported paying bribes.
    • The total estimated bribe paid by households in 2002 was approximately Tk 3,700 crore ($640 million) — in a country where per capita income was less than $400.

    This was not petty corruption. This was not a few bad apples. This was a system where virtually every interaction with the state required a bribe. Where the police, the courts, the land office, the tax department — every institution that a citizen might turn to for protection or service — had been converted into a revenue extraction machine.

    And the money didn’t flow upward by accident. It flowed upward by design. When Tarique Rahman’s Hawa Bhaban was the clearing house for government contracts, when Shamim Iskander was siphoning tens of crores from the national airline, when every police station and every courtroom demanded payment — the money moved up the chain. The bribe paid to a local official fed the system that fed Hawa Bhaban that fed the Zia family’s bank accounts in Singapore and beyond.

    The Khamba Tarique Scandal: Poles to Nowhere

    Of all the corruption stories from the BNP era, few capture its absurdity and its cruelty quite like the “Khamba Tarique” scandal.

    “Khamba” means “pole” in Bangla. The scandal was named for exactly what it was: under Tarique Rahman’s influence, the government spent millions of dollars installing electric poles across rural Bangladesh. The poles were erected. The wires were never connected. The electricity never came.

    This was not an infrastructure project. This was a money-laundering operation disguised as rural electrification. Contracts for pole procurement were funneled through Hawa Bhaban. Prices were inflated — sometimes double or triple the market rate. The poles were installed in remote areas where nobody would check whether they actually worked. And the money — millions of dollars of it — disappeared into the pockets of Tarique’s associates.

    Time magazine, in a January 2026 article, noted that Tarique Rahman continues to be referred to by the derogatory nickname “Khamba Tarique” by critics. The nickname stuck because it encapsulated everything wrong with BNP-era corruption: the government didn’t even bother to deliver the service it was supposedly paying for. It installed the poles, took the money, and left the villages in the dark.

    Literally in the dark. People who had been promised electricity received concrete poles instead. Concrete poles sticking out of rice paddies, connected to nothing, generating nothing, useful for nothing. A monument to theft that you could see from the road.

    That is what being the world’s most corrupt country looks like. Not just money stolen — though there was plenty of that. But infrastructure stolen. Development stolen. Electricity stolen. The basic promise of government — that your taxes will pay for services — replaced by a system where your taxes paid for poles that led nowhere.

    The Police: Bangladesh’s Most Corrupt Institution

    If there was one institution that embodied the corruption of the BNP era, it was the police.

    In 2002, Transparency International Bangladesh revealed that Bangladesh Police was one of the most corrupt public institutions in the country. The Asian Human Rights Commission went further, stating that “the people of Bangladesh paid more to the police than to the government.”

    Think about that. In a country of 140 million people, the institution responsible for enforcing the law was extracting more money from citizens through bribes than the government was collecting through legal taxation. The police had become a revenue-generating operation — not for the public treasury, but for the private enrichment of officers and their political masters.

    The numbers from TIB’s household survey tell the story:

    • 97.8% of households interacting with police paid bribes
    • Bribes were demanded for filing FIRs (First Information Reports — the basic first step of criminal justice)
    • Bribes were demanded for investigating cases
    • Bribes were demanded for not filing cases against the innocent
    • Bribes were demanded for releasing detainees
    • Bribes were demanded simply for doing the job the taxpayers were already paying for

    And at the top of this pyramid sat a Home Minister — Lutfozzaman Babar — who was simultaneously overseeing the police force, facilitating the August 21 grenade attack cover-up, enabling the Chittagong arms haul, and ordering the Shamsunnahar Hall raid on female university students. The police didn’t just tolerate corruption under Babar. They were instructed in it. When the Home Minister is himself a criminal, what exactly is the police force supposed to model itself on?

    But the police corruption wasn’t just about individual officers shaking people down. It was about who was protected and who was persecuted. When 97.8% of interactions with police required a bribe, the system wasn’t just extracting money — it was creating a two-tier justice system. The wealthy and connected could buy their way out of anything. The poor and powerless could be jailed, tortured, or killed with impunity.

    This was the system that produced Operation Clean Heart’s 44 custody deaths. This was the system that produced RAB’s 600+ extrajudicial killings. This was the system that couldn’t — or wouldn’t — properly investigate the August 21 grenade attack. When the enforcers are for sale, the law is for sale. And when the law is for sale, the powerful are untouchable and the vulnerable are disposable.

    The Biman Bleed: How One Man Gutted an Airline

    Let me tell you about one specific corruption story that illustrates how the system worked at the top — because the macro numbers can feel abstract, and the human stories don’t.

    Biman Bangladesh Airlines is the national flag carrier. It is owned by the government. It is supposed to serve the people of Bangladesh by providing air connectivity, supporting trade, and representing the country internationally.

    Under BNP rule, it served one family.

    Shamim Iskander — Khaleda Zia’s younger brother — was a former flight engineer at Biman who transformed his family connection into total control over the airline’s commercial operations. Here is what he did:

    • Arranged the lease of three aircraft that cost Biman approximately Tk 250 crore ($30 million) in lease costs — when six planes could have been purchased outright for the same amount
    • Leased a defective Airbus from the United States that cost Biman about Tk 100 crore ($12 million) over 5 years — the plane’s market value was only Tk 62.10 crore
    • Arranged an unnecessary Boeing 747 lease, further draining the airline’s finances
    • Earned at least Tk 40 crore ($4.8 million+) in commissions on these deals
    • Controlled aircraft maintenance, engine overhaul, and spare parts contracts through his brother-in-law Shahedul Haq as local agent for foreign firms
    • “Dictated the terms of every transfer, dismissal and appointment of Biman staff” — as reported by The Daily Star

    The result: Biman Bangladesh Airlines — the national flag carrier of a country of 140 million people — was nearly bankrupted. By 2006, the situation was so dire that Biman employees and pilots launched a movement to “save Biman.” They weren’t protesting market conditions or fuel prices. They were protesting the systematic looting of their airline by the Prime Minister’s brother.

    And then, in March 2025, a Dhaka court discharged Shamim Iskander and his wife from the corruption case that had 36 prosecution witnesses documenting his crimes. Case dismissed. Walked free.

    In March 2026, Shamim Iskander sat in the VIP gallery of Parliament at the maiden session of the 13th Parliament. Second row. Next to his wife. Next to the Prime Minister’s family. From accused corrupt figure who bled the national airline dry to VIP at Parliament.

    This is what the world’s most corrupt country looks like when it’s run by the world’s most corrupt family. The airline bleeds. The brother profits. The courts clear him. And then he gets a VIP seat to watch his nephew become Prime Minister.

    What “Most Corrupt” Actually Means for Real People

    Rankings and scores and indices are important. But they can feel abstract. So let me tell you what “most corrupt country in the world” actually means for the people who live there.

    It means a pregnant woman going to a government hospital and being told she needs to pay a bribe to see a doctor. It means a farmer trying to register his land and being told he needs to pay a bribe to the land office. It means a small business owner trying to get a trade license and being told he needs to pay a bribe to the municipal corporation. It means a family trying to file a police report after a crime and being told they need to pay a bribe just to have the FIR registered.

    It means that 97.8% of people who interact with the police pay bribes. Not 10%. Not 30%. Not even 50%. 97.8%. Almost every single person who walked into a police station during the BNP era walked out having paid money they couldn’t afford to an officer who was supposed to serve them.

    It means that the total bribe burden on Bangladeshi households was estimated at Tk 3,700 crore — in a country where the average annual income was less than $400. This wasn’t rich people paying their way out of trouble. This was poor people paying to access basic services that their government was already supposed to provide.

    It means that when Transparency International released its rankings and Bangladesh came last — again — the BNP government’s response was not to fix the problem. The response was to attack Transparency International. BNP leaders called the CPI “biased,” “politically motivated,” and “part of an international conspiracy against Bangladesh.” They did not dispute the data. They did not propose reforms. They attacked the messenger.

    This is the playbook. When you cannot defend the numbers, attack the people who published them. When you cannot explain why your country is the most corrupt on Earth for five straight years, claim that the organization measuring corruption is conspiring against you.

    Transparency International is not a political organization. It is a global coalition with chapters in over 100 countries. Its methodology is public, peer-reviewed, and used by the World Bank, the IMF, and virtually every major development institution on Earth. When Bangladesh ranked last, it wasn’t because TIB had an agenda. It was because the data was devastating and the reality was worse.

    The Aftermath: What Changed (And What Didn’t)

    After the BNP-Jamaat government fell on January 11, 2007 — the 1/11 caretaker government intervention that BNP now calls a “dark chapter” — Bangladesh’s CPI score began to improve. Slowly. Incrementally. But unmistakably.

    By 2010, the score had risen from 1.2 to 2.4. Still deeply corrupt. Still in the bottom quarter globally. But no longer dead last. No longer the world’s most corrupt country. The improvement wasn’t dramatic, and it wasn’t fast enough, but it was directionally correct.

    The caretaker government’s anti-corruption drive — the very same drive that BNP condemns as persecution — filed cases against Tarique Rahman, Shamim Iskander, Khaleda Zia, and dozens of other corrupt officials. The cases had evidence. The convictions were secured. The money trails were documented by the FBI, by Singapore courts, by Bangladesh’s own Anti-Corruption Commission.

    And then, one by one, every single conviction was overturned. Every single case was acquitted. Every single accused walked free. Not because they were innocent — but because the courts of Bangladesh, under BNP rule, produce the outcomes that the ruling party requires.

    The money that was stolen? Not recovered. The victims who paid bribes? Not compensated. The institutions that were gutted? Not rebuilt. The national airline that was looted? Not compensated. The five years at number one? Not even acknowledged.

    The Current Government’s Corruption Problem

    And now the BNP is back in power. Tarique Rahman — the man the US Embassy called a “symbol of kleptocratic government,” the man who ran Hawa Bhaban as a parallel corruption headquarters, the man who gave Bangladesh the nickname “Khamba Tarique” — is the Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

    His uncle Shamim Iskander sits in the VIP gallery of Parliament. His mother’s corruption cases have been acquitted. His own 84 cases have been acquitted. The courts that convicted them have been overruled. The institutions that investigated them have been neutralized.

    And Bangladesh’s CPI score? In 2024, before BNP returned to power, Bangladesh scored 23 out of 100 on the CPI, ranking 111th out of 180 countries. Bad. But not the worst. Not even close to the 1.2 out of 10 that BNP achieved during its last stint in power.

    What do you think that score is going to look like in five years?

    The pattern is clear. The mechanism is documented. The people are the same. The playbook is the same. The only thing that has changed is that now they have five more years to run it.

    Why This Matters Now

    You might be wondering: why write about corruption rankings from 2001-2005? What does that have to do with today?

    Here is why.

    When a country ranks as the most corrupt in the world for five consecutive years, that is not a statistical fluke. That is a governing philosophy. That is what happens when a political party does not just tolerate corruption but organizes it. When corruption is not a bug but a feature. When the system is designed — from the top down, from Hawa Bhaban to the local police station — to extract wealth from citizens and funnel it to the powerful.

    And the people who designed that system are now running the country again.

    Not metaphorically. Not indirectly. Literally the same people. Tarique Rahman is Prime Minister. His uncle sits in Parliament’s VIP gallery. His party controls the courts, the police, the intelligence services, and every institution that is supposed to check corruption.

    The BNP’s defense is always the same: “Those were old cases. Those were politically motivated. The courts have cleared us.”

    The courts cleared them under a BNP government. The same courts that convicted them under a different government. The same legal system. The same evidence. Different political masters. Different outcomes.

    Transparency International’s rankings were not issued by a Bangladeshi court. They were not the product of a political prosecution. They were the assessment of the world’s leading anti-corruption organization, using data from the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the Economist Intelligence Unit, and every other major institution that measures governance.

    You cannot acquit a ranking. You cannot overturn a CPI score. You cannot appeal the mathematics of 97.8% of police interactions requiring a bribe.

    The data doesn’t care who is in power. The data is the data. And the data says: when BNP governs, Bangladesh becomes the most corrupt country on Earth.

    The Numbers Don’t Care About Your Politics

    I want to end with the numbers. Not opinions. Not interpretations. Not political spin. Just the numbers.

    2001: Bangladesh is ranked the most corrupt country in the world. CPI score: 0.4 out of 10.

    2002: Bangladesh is ranked the most corrupt country in the world. CPI score: 1.2 out of 10.

    2003: Bangladesh is ranked the most corrupt country in the world. CPI score: 1.3 out of 10.

    2004: Bangladesh is ranked the most corrupt country in the world. CPI score: 1.5 out of 10.

    2005: Bangladesh is ranked the most corrupt country in the world. CPI score: 1.7 out of 10.

    Five years. Five last-place finishes. The worst score on the planet.

    This is not BNP’s political opponents talking. This is not Awami League propaganda. This is not a foreign conspiracy. This is the Corruption Perceptions Index — the gold standard of corruption measurement, used by every major international institution, compiled from multiple independent sources, peer-reviewed, transparent, and consistent.

    And these are the same people who are now telling you that they will fight corruption. The same people who gave Bangladesh five consecutive years as the world’s most corrupt nation are now promising clean governance. The same man whose office was described by US diplomats as a “parallel power center” for bribery is now the Prime Minister.

    Five years at number one. That’s not a ranking. That’s a record. And records this bad don’t happen by accident.

    Sources

    • Transparency International: Corruption Perceptions Index (2001–2005) — Bangladesh ranked #1 most corrupt for five consecutive years
    • Transparency International Bangladesh: National Household Survey on Corruption (2003) — 97.8% police bribe rate, Tk 3,700 crore estimated annual bribe burden
    • Asian Human Rights Commission: Statement on Bangladesh police corruption
    • US Embassy Cable (2005), published by WikiLeaks: Tarique Rahman described as “symbol of kleptocratic government”
    • Time Magazine (January 2026): “Khamba Tarique” nickname continues
    • The Daily Star (July 2008): “Shamim rode on Biman” — investigation into Shamim Iskander’s Biman corruption
    • The Daily Star (March 2025): Shamim Iskander discharged from corruption case
    • Dhaka Tribune (March 2026): Shamim Iskander in VIP gallery at Parliament maiden session
    • ACC case records: Shamim Iskander — 36 prosecution witnesses, Tk 250 crore Biman losses
    • Human Rights Watch: “Judge, Jury, and Executioner” (December 2006)
    • International Crisis Group: Asia Report No. 121, “Bangladesh Today” (October 2006)
    • The Business Standard: Khaleda Zia corruption case coverage
    • Hindustan Times (February 2026): WikiLeaks cables on Hawa Bhaban as “parallel power center”

    Published by Bangladesh Untold. Every claim in this article is sourced from Transparency International, international human rights reports, court records, verified media coverage, and official government documents. Five years at number one is not an opinion. It is a fact.