‘If India attacks Pakistan, Bangladesh will…': Muhammad Yunus aide's ‘northeast' warning over Pahalgam terror attack

ALM Fazlur Rahman, a retired Bangladeshi major general, suggested that his country should invade and occupy all seven northeastern states of India if New Delhi attacks Pakistan as a retaliation for the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam that killed 26 people.

Rahman, a former head of the Bangladesh Rifles (now Border Guard Bangladesh) who is considered close to Bangladesh chief advisor Muhammad Yunus, also called for cooperation with China to achieve the wild idea.

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“If India attacks Pakistan, Bangladesh will have to occupy seven states of northeast India. In this regard, I feel it is necessary to start discussions on joint military arrangement with China,” Rahman, the chairperson of the National Independent Commission, wrote in Bengali on Facebook.

Rahman's comments come at a time when New Delhi and Dhaka try to set differences aside and improve bilateral relations which sunk to new lows after former prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India seeking asylum and India's concerns of allegedly targeted attacks against Hindu minorities in the country.

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Tensions also seemed to have undergone a strain when Muhammad Yunus commented on India's northeastern states during his visit to China in March.

“The seven states of India, the eastern part of India, are called the seven sisters. They are a landlocked region of India. They have no way to reach out to the ocean,” Yunus said. He called Bangladesh the “only guardian of the ocean” in the region and said this could be a massive opportunity, an extension of the Chinese economy.

The remark was condemned by several leaders from India's ruling party, the BJP. India's external affairs minister S Jaishankar's comment in April during a foreign minister's meeting of BIMSTEC seemed like a riposte to Yunus's suggestion.

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“Our northeastern region in particular is emerging as a connectivity hub for the BIMSTEC, with a myriad network of roads, railways, waterways, grids and pipelines,” he said, adding that India is “aware of its special responsibility” in the context of BIMSTEC.

Days after Yunus's remark, India ended a nearly five-year-old arrangement for trans-shipment of Bangladeshi export cargo to third countries via Indian airports and ports, citing increasing congestion for cargo traffic.