Families of diplomats recalled from Bangladesh, India receives warning from intelligence agencies

New Delhi: India has received credible intelligence information about a possible terrorist threat to its diplomats and their families in Bangladesh, in view of which it has decided to bring back the families of the diplomats from there, although a formal announcement in this regard has not been made yet.

Giving this information, highly placed sources said that this step is a precautionary measure and it is also an indication that bilateral relations are deteriorating due to the government of Bangladesh led by Mohammad Yunus. According to intelligence information, many militants, who were released in large numbers after the student revolt in August 2024, have reorganized in Bangladesh and are also getting some kind of recognition there.

Intelligence assessments state that these elements may target Indian diplomats and their families. In view of this potential threat, the government has taken an unprecedented step and decided to call back the families of Indian diplomats posted in Bangladesh as a precautionary measure. India’s strategic posture is increasingly concerned about the resurgence of militant forces in Bangladesh and the increasingly harsh language and hostile stance against India by Islamist terrorist organizations.

Officials believe that this security scenario has significantly deteriorated compared to the stability achieved through sustained counter-terrorism cooperation between the two countries over the past decade. In an interview with Univarta earlier this month, Shantanu Mukherjee, former National Security Advisor to the Mauritius government and a retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, had said that recent developments across the country’s eastern border indicate that the release of militants could adversely affect the success achieved against terrorism. He said that radical terrorist prisoners being released from prison and being allowed to regroup could again make Bangladesh a base for ‘jihadi’ networks, as it was in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Mukherjee warned, “The regrouping of these militants after their release last year is extremely worrying. This not only increases the risk of violence within Bangladesh, but also increases the possibility of cross-border threats to India.” Indian officials are particularly concerned that Bangladeshi terrorist groups are re-establishing ties with radical organizations in Pakistan and the Middle East, which could reactivate old regional terrorist networks that had been largely dismantled in previous years.