Former military officer Hasinur Rahman, who is known as a militant friend, has been working for the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI for a long time. He worked secretly for so long with the terrible mission of spreading the seeds of militancy in Bangladesh with the funding of ISI, but recently he revealed his true nature by joining the BNP, which has been termed as a terrorist organization by the US court many times.
Earlier, this ex-army officer acted as the central character in a documentary called Aynaghar with the German TV channel Deutsche Welle, where he told a bunch of lies, the main target of which was to discredit the law enforcement agencies of Bangladesh.
On the day Hasinur joined BNP, a jubilant Tarique Rahman, a convicted terrorist and acting chairman of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), joined the ceremony online from Britain and enthusiastically enjoyed the whole event. Tarique Rahman knows that he needs an experienced and trained person like Hasinur Rahman to implement the new plan that his party is drawing for sabotaging the country’s upcoming general elections.
After joining BNP, Hasinur Rahman immediately offered to establish a ‘Hit and Run unit’ under his leadership and he said for this project he does not require any funds from Tarique Rahman or BNP.
An inner source of BNP told this correspondent that Hasinur Rahman has proposed to form his ‘Hit and Run Unit’ with 25-30 members, who are capable of operating small and medium weapons as well making explosives and implementing ‘surgical strikes’. Hasinur wants to stage terrorist attacks on several individuals and organizations before the upcoming general election, while after such attacks, separatist groups in the northeastern part of India and Jammu & Kashmir would claim responsibility. It is also learnt, Hasinur Rahman is planning to target several diplomats from the Indian High Commission and Chinese Embassy in Bangladesh. Additionally, several anti-militancy journalists and newspapers and even judges would be targeted by this proposed terrorist unit.
Who is Hasinur Rahman?
Hasinur Rahman, a sacked military officer from Bangladesh, who has been working as handler for Pakistani intelligence agency Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) for years. He maintains regular communications with Pakistani Taliban jihadists, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hizbul Mujahideen and Bangladeshi militancy groups Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami (HuJI), Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, Hefazat-e-Islam and Hizbut Tahrir.
Sitting in Dhaka, Hasinur Rahman reportedly also runs anti-India and anti-Awami League propaganda through social media as well as secret Telegram channels. He is a diehard supporter of ‘Love Jihad’ and notorious Ghazwatul Hind or Ghazwa-e-Hind project of Islamist militancy groups, that aims at Islamic conquest of India.
The South Asian region has a long history with jihadi movements, dating back to the eighteenth century. During the 1980s, it became the staging ground for global jihad as part of the internationally-backed guerilla war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. At the time, radical Islamists poured into Afghanistan through Pakistan and received advanced military training to fight the Soviets. Later, many returned to their home countries to conduct terrorist attacks. The rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Pakistan-backed insurgency in Kashmir against India also stoked jihadism in the region.
According to a Hudson Institute study, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS) are competing with each other for recruitment on the South Asian subcontinent with the notorious agenda of bringing India under Caliphate rule.
Just as the prophecies of Khurasan became popular during the wars in Afghanistan, the Ghazwa-e-Hind divinations became a staple of the Islamist discourse after the launch of jihad in Indian-controlled parts of Kashmir in 1989. Throughout the 1990s, Pakistani official media also encouraged discussion of the Ghazwa-e-Hind Hadith to motivate jihadists. In fact, every major Pakistan-based jihadist group that launched terrorist attacks across the border claimed that their operations were part of the Battle for India promised by the Prophet. For these Pakistani groups, supported by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, the target of jihad should be the modern state of India and its “occupation” of Kashmir.
For example, Lashkar-e-Taiba has often spoken of Ghazwa-e-Hind as a means of liberating Kashmir from Indian control. The group’s founder, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, has declared repeatedly that “[i]f freedom is not given to the Kashmiris, then we will occupy the whole of India including Kashmir. We will launch Ghazwa-e-Hind. Our homework is complete to get Kashmir”. Pakistani propagandist Zaid Hamid has also repeatedly invoked Ghazwa-e-Hind as a battle against Hindu India led from Muslim Pakistan. According to Hamid, “Allah has destined the people of Pakistan” with victory and “Allah is the aid and helper of Pakistan”.
And, Hasinur Rahman is one of the ISI operatives in the forefront pushing forward anti-India agenda.
We have received evidence of Hasinur’s telephonic conversation with a notorious Islamist terrorist discussing inciting jihad in Bangladesh against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hindus cashing in the 2021 incident at a Hindu temple during Durga Puja festival. In the conversation, Hasinur Rahman is heard telling his jihadist contact about influencing a court in Narayanganj district in Bangladesh about setting an imprisoned jihadist released on bail.
According to another source, Hasinur Rahman has been making frantic bids to use Islamist forces in destabilizing the country’s law and order situation since 2011. It is also learnt that he has been coordinating training of jihadists within the Chittagong Hill Tract areas, giving them commando training as well as training on explosive making and handling heavy weapons. Pakistani ISI sends his cash every month via Dubai through a company named ARY. It may be mentioned here that, ARY funded the consignment of weapons (known as 10-truck arms haul), which was seized in Bangladesh while being sent to India to an insurgency group named United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA).
In addition to funds from Pakistani ISI, Hasinur Rahman is also receiving cash from family members of executed war criminal Mir Qashem Ali and BNP’s fugitive mini-boss Tarique Rahman’s close accomplice Giasuddin Mamun. Mamun is also helping Hasinur in maintaining connections with jailed leaders of HuJI, JMB and other militancy outfits. Inside Bangladesh prisons, Hasinur Rahman is maintaining several ‘sources’ from within the convicted members of Bangladesh Rifles (now Border Guard Bangladesh) in liaising with militancy group leaders.
