5 August 2024… the date when the coup took place in Bangladesh. At around 1 am, an officer of the Indian intelligence agency was at a secret location. He was sending information about the events in Bangladesh to his command center. It was taking time for him to type on his phone. So he wrote all the information on plain paper and started sending its photo to the command center. He got the clue of the coup in Bangladesh 16 months in advance.
Many secrets of this coup are recorded in the diaries of Bangladesh’s intelligence agencies. These documents also contain information about the faces who planned the coup. The confidential documents available with Bhaskar describe the events between May 2023 and August 2024 in a sequential manner. According to them, the script of the coup in Bangladesh was written jointly by Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI and America’s intelligence agency CIA.
May 2023: Leaders of the opposition party BNP came in contact with the US intelligence agency CIA
Before the Bangladesh elections in May 2023, US Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu and US Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter Haas met the Bangladeshi ambassador for a lunch meeting. During the meeting, they warned the Bangladeshi ambassador that if free elections are not held there, preparations are being made to ban American visas of those responsible for it.
Meanwhile, Sheikh Hasina had hinted about the US pressure on her during her election campaign. According to intelligence reports, the leaders of Bangladesh’s main opposition party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), were in contact with the CIA. When Hasina succeeded in holding and winning the elections, work on the coup began rapidly.
October 2023: Campaign against Hasina started by calling her an ‘Indian agent’
Even before the elections in Bangladesh in October 2023, opposition parties have been calling her an ‘Indian agent’. This campaign was being given two colors. First – India has made Bangladesh its colony. And second – Sheikh Hasina is an Indian agent, who has sold the country to India to save her throne.
In April 2024, the Sheikh Hasina government conducted an internal survey. According to this, her popularity saw a decline of 10-15% after the elections. The campaign had started showing its effect. These were the initial trends of the coup in Bangladesh, but the plan had started much before this.