Bangladesh Untold

Tag: NSI

  • 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)