In a concern for India, Pakistan Army returns to Bangladesh first time since 1971

Amid diplomatic differences between India and Bangladesh since the toppling of the Sheikh Hasina government, the Pakistan military’s new deal with Dhaka is likely to trigger a security concern with New Delhi. Come February 2025, the Pakistan Army will start training its Bangladeshi counterpart.

This is for the first time since the 1971 Liberation War, which gave birth to the independent Bangladesh, that Dhaka has reached an agreement with the Pakistan Army to train Bangladeshi soldiers.

Pakistan proposes, Bangladesh sees it a medium to improve ties

According to a report by The Economic Times, the proposal to Bangladesh was extended by Pakistan Army’s Joint Chief of Staff Committee chairman Gen S Samshad Mirza.

The report said the agreement for cooperation between Bangladesh and Pakistan armies was reached against the backdrop of the Yunus-led interim government’s effort to improve ties with Islamabad.

The training will be held in four cantonments of Bangladesh Army starting from Mymensingh cantonment which houses training and doctrine command headquarters of the Bangladesh Army.

The ET report quoted sources as saying that officers of Maj Gen rank officers in Pakistan may train Bangladesh Army officers.

Why should India be worried?

Pakistan trained officers have held leadership positions in Bangladesh Army till the first two decades after its independence. However, just as they trained them, the Pakistani officers may again try to push its anti-India ideology among the Bangladeshi soldiers.

India has long complained that Pakistan has fomented terrorism and insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab. All terror groups operating against India have had their nerve centres and headquarters in Pakistan, with Indian security agencies saying that the Pakistan Army’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been actively involved with them. Pakistan Army officers were accused of plotting and executing terror incidents in India — including the 2008 Mumbai attack killing more than 165 people of multiple nationalities.

Among the two Bangladeshi officers trained by the Pakistan Army were Gen Ziaur Rahman and Lt Gen HM Ershad, both of whom went on to become Presidents.

The liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, with the intervention of the Indian armed forces against the backdrop of a major refugee crisis impacting the Northeast, saw subsidence of anti-India ideology in the Dhaka establishment. The Bangladeshi governments, especially those led by the Awami League — the party founded by its Father of the Nation Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman and his daughter Sheikh Hasina, who is living in exile in Delhi — favoured a pro-Indian stance finding military and economic security in its policies.

Even under military leader Ershad, who was an alumni of India’s National Defence College, Bangladesh maintained cordial links with the political leadership in New Delhi.

Presence of the Pakistan Army in Bangladesh may pose a security challenge to Northeast India, where Pakistan’s major ally China has been trying to build a strategic military pressure on the land-locked Indian states.

This comes against the backdrop of reports that the leadership of the Bangladesh Army “perceived” to be close to Awami League and Hasina are being targeted by Yunus-led regime with cases being filed against them.