Flights to Pak, jets made in Pak: Is Bangladesh doing this just to needle India?

The Bangladesh pivot to Pakistan is becoming more apparent each day. Since the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus taking charge, Dhaka’s ties with Islamabad are undergoing a recalibration, which could pose serious security challenges for India’s eastern security flank and the North-East.

The most recent example of this reset is Bangladesh “expressing potential interest” in procuring JF-17s from Pakistan. Moreover, the state-run airlines, Bangladesh Airlines, will resume direct flights between Dhaka and Karachi from January 29, restoring non-stop air connectivity between the two countries after over a decade.

What do these developments mean for the India-Bangladesh ties that was once seen as a cornerstone of South Asian diplomacy?

Now, fly from Dhaka to Karachi directly

Biman Bangladesh Airlines, the South Asian country’s national carrier, is resuming direct flights to Pakistan’s Karachi, starting January 29. The airline noted that at first it would operate twice a week, on Thursdays and Saturdays, on the Dhaka-Karachi route.

The flight will depart Dhaka at 8:00 pm local time and arrive in Karachi at 11:00 pm. The return flight will depart Karachi at 12:00 midnight and arrive in Dhaka at 4:20 am.

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Until now, passengers wishing to travel between the two countries had to depend on connecting flights through locations such as Dubai or Doha, making the journey time-consuming.

As per a tbsnews report, discussions on the same were being held with Pakistani authorities for several months. In fact, plans for this were first floated last August when Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar visited Dhaka.

It still remains unclear whether the Biman Bangladesh Airlines would use the Indian airspace to Pakistan as the shortest route lies through central India.

A likely JF-17 deal between Pakistan and Bangladesh

On January 6, the Air Force chiefs of both nations met for the first time at Air Headquarters in Islamabad following which Pakistan announced that Bangladesh has expressed a “potential interest” in procuring the JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft, improving defence ties between the two nations.

For the unaware, the JF-17 Thunder is a single-engine lightweight combat jet developed jointly by the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) of China and the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC). Most notably, Pakistan used the JF-17 jets quite extensively during the conflict with India last May.

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Taking stock of the results of Operation Sindoor, Indian Air Force chief Air Marshal AP Singh, had said last October that India had downed at least four to five fighter aircraft, mostly the F-16 and JF-17 class, belonging to Pakistan.

Pakistan’s military press wing ISPR in a statement said Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar Sidhu and his Bangladeshi counterpart held talks on the procurement of the JF-17, a multi-role combat aircraft jointly developed by Pakistan and China. The discussions also covered training, maintenance support and broader cooperation between the two air forces.

“Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu…reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to supporting Bangladesh air force through a comprehensive training framework from basic to advanced flying and specialised courses across PAF institutions,” the ISPR statement read.

The JF-17 has been one of Pakistan’s main defence exports. The country is currently in the process of supplying 40 JF-17s to Azerbaijan as part of a $4.6 billion defence agreement. In December last year, it also reportedly struck an over $4 billion defence deal with the Saddam Khalifa Haftar-led Libyan National Army (LNA) to supply 16 JF-17 jets and 12 Super Mushshak trainer aircraft.

However, the JF-17 has a chequered past. The aircraft has been involved in four crashes, involving at least one death. According to The Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety Network, JF-17 Thunder crashes have occurred in November 2011, September 2016, September 2020, and August 2021.

And in June 2024, a PAF JF-17 Block 2 aircraft crashed during a routine training flight in Jhang District in the Punjab province.

A growing bonhomie between Pakistan and Bangladesh

These two developments are just the most recent examples of a growing bonhomie between Pakistan and Bangladesh. Trade between the two countries has seen a sharp rise since 2024 when Hasina was ousted from power. Between August and December 2024, trade between Pakistan and Bangladesh saw a 27 per cent hike, which saw a further 20 per cent year-on-year increase by December 2025.

Additionally, in November 2024, a cargo vessel from Karachi docked at Bangladesh’s southeastern coast, marking the first-ever direct maritime contact between the two countries since the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

The two nations have also agreed on visa-free entry for officials and diplomats. In September 2024, Islamabad also announced that Bangladeshis could travel to the country without a visa fee.

Diplomatic engagement has also accelerated. Over a dozen senior-level interactions have taken place since mid-2024, including Foreign Secretary-level talks in April 2025 — the first in 15 years — and Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar’s visit to Dhaka in August 2025, his first since 2012.

When it comes to defence too, there’s been engagement. Bangladesh also ordered for fresh supply of artillery ammunition from Pakistan.

A concern for India

Bangladesh’s pivot to Pakistan comes when its ties with India are on a downturn. Recently, New Delhi has criticised the Yunus administration for the lack of safety to Hindus in the country, a charge rejected by Dhaka.

However, a pro-Pakistan Bangladesh is of particular concern to New Delhi.

Former Indian diplomat Veena Sikri told Moneycontrol that Dhaka risks sliding into Pakistan’s strategic orbit in ways that could pose serious security challenges for India’s eastern security flank and the North-East. Sikri said Pakistan’s objective was to regain the kind of command and control it exercised over Bangladesh before 1971, when it was East Pakistan.

“That is the objective of Pakistan, definitely,” Sikri said. “They want to bring Bangladesh to the pre-1971 level, when they had command and control.”

As Pavan Chaurasia, a research fellow at the Delh-based India Foundation think tank, noted in a South China Morning Post that the next six to seven months will be critical in determining Bangladesh’s future direction. For India, he said, it is a case of “wait and watch” while working to secure its borders.

With inputs from agencies