Within hours of the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal by Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) of 2002, Bangladeshi “journalist” and an asset of Pakistani spy agency Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) received a call from a covert ISI officer in New York City where ISI man said, “Can you raise the issue of Kejriwal’s arrest with Miller and others?” In a delighted voice Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey said he will.
According to an intelligence source, Ansarey is seen almost regularly meeting Pakistan embassy’s staff, particularly Muhammad Asim Raza while he also meets others such as Muhammad Taqi and Jamal Nasir. During some of these discreet meetings, Pakistanis pass envelops to Mushfiqul, which possibly is the monthly stipend his receives from ISI.
No one is yet asking why Pakistani ISI became concerned at the arrest of Kejriwal and if there have been secret connections between him and the Pakistani spy agency. But it is evidently proved – Islamabad wanted to play dirty centering the arrest of Kejriwal and use it in wrongly defaming Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by bringing-up the matter in the State Department and the United Nations. In this mission of ISI, Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey has played a vital role, while according to the source – he had received encouragement also from Tarique Rahman, a convicted terrorist on the run and acting chairman of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) – a Tier-III terrorist organization.
Arvind Kejriwal, a controversial politician is currently under custody. Bail under PMLA is only possible once the accused must prove in the court that the charges are baseless. In Kejriwal’s case, it is impossible as ED has gathered substantial evidence before arresting him.
Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey is wanted by Bangladeshi courts and law enforcement agencies in a number of criminal cases, while he too is on the run since 2007. In the United States he succeeded in getting press accreditation cards from the White House, State Department and the United Nations by falsely proclaiming as the “US Correspondent” of his website named ‘Just News’. In his application for press accreditation cards, Ansarey made the false claim of “Just News” being based in Bangladesh, although in reality, there is no existence of ‘Just News’ in Bangladesh. Instead, this website is funded by BNP while Ansarey is shown as its editor and publisher.
It may be mentioned here that, on March 27, 2024, following comment of US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller who responded to question from Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey, a member of Al Qaeda-connected ultra-Islamist Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), India summoned US diplomat protesting Miller’s comment on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest and freezing of opposition Congress party’s bank accounts.
In response, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said, “We continue to follow these actions closely, including the arrest of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. We are also aware of the Congress party’s allegations that tax authorities have frozen some of their bank accounts in a manner that will make it challenging to effectively campaign in the upcoming elections. And we encourage fair, transparent and timely legal processes for each of these issues. With respect to your first question, I’m not going to talk about any private diplomatic conversations, but of course, what we have said publicly is what I just said from here, that we encourage fair, transparent, timely legal processes. We don’t think anyone should object to that”.
Following this, India summoned US diplomat protesting Miller’s comment on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest and freezing of the opposition Congress party’s bank accounts.
It may be further mentioned here that, Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey – a heavily anti-Semite and pro-jihadist individual has served as the Deputy Press Secretary to then Prime Minister Khaleda Zia during the 2001-2006 rule of Islamist coalition government of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI). Ansarey, a confidante of Tarique Rahman was particularly assigned to maintain liaison between Tarique and militancy outlets in Bangladesh, including Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B), while he also was maintaining communication with leaders of United Liberation Front of Assom (ULFA) on Tarique Rahman’s behalf. He also worked as a coordinator of BNP’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman when Al Qaeda kingpin Ayman al-Zawahiri was hosted by BNP in December 2001.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s hosting Al Qaeda group including Ayman al-Zawahiri was first exposed by eminent journalist and counterterrorism expert Alex Perry, who in a TIME magazine article on April 14, 2002 had exposed Al Qaeda kingpin al-Zawahiri and other members of the terrorist group’s arrival and stay in Bangladesh.
