A retired Bangladeshi military officer and close aide to Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus has sparked controversy with inflammatory remarks suggesting that Bangladesh should occupy India’s northeastern states if India retaliates against Pakistan over the recent Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people.
Major General (retd) ALM Fazlur Rahman, currently the chairperson of the National Independent Investigation Commission, posted on Facebook that if India attacks Pakistan, "Bangladesh will have to occupy the seven northeastern states of India."
He further advocated for a joint military arrangement with China to realize this vision.
Rahman, who previously headed the Bangladesh Rifles (now Border Guard Bangladesh), is seen as closely aligned with Yunus, the interim government’s chief adviser. His remarks come amid already strained ties between India and Bangladesh, worsened by Yunus’s recent controversial comments during a visit to China.
Yunus had described India’s northeastern region as "landlocked" and called Bangladesh the "only guardian of the ocean" in the area — a statement perceived in New Delhi as undermining Indian sovereignty. Several BJP leaders condemned the statement, while Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar responded indirectly in a BIMSTEC meeting by reaffirming the northeastern region's growing importance as a connectivity hub.
India later ended a nearly five-year-old cargo trans-shipment arrangement with Bangladesh, citing port congestion — a move seen by many as a reaction to the diplomatic tension.
The situation reflects deepening geopolitical fault lines in South Asia, as rhetoric from key figures in Dhaka increasingly references regional alignments involving China.
