Ex-Bangladesh Army officer calls for occupation of India’s Northeast with China's help if it strikes Pakistan

File photo of Bangladesh interim chief Muhammad Yunus with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan in the wake of the heinous terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, a senior official of the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government of Bangladesh has called for Dhaka to occupy India’s Northeast with China’s help, if New Delhi launches military action against Pakistan.

The remark was made by Major General (retired) ALM Fazlur Rahman, the chairperson of the National Independent Commission of Inquiry probing the 2009 Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) massacre.

“If India attacks Pakistan, Bangladesh should occupy seven states of North East India. In this regard, I think it is necessary to start a discussion on a joint military system with China,” he said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

This deeply provocative remark comes at a time when India-Pakistan tensions are soaring in wake of the April 22 terror attack which claimed 26 lives, and New Delhi-Dhaka relations are already strained since the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina-led government, which was followed by increased incidents of violence against minorities in the country, particularly Hindus.

During his Beijing visit last months, Yunus had said that with Northeast India “landlocked”, Dhaka is the “only guardian of the ocean for all this region”. Positioning Bangladesh as the region’s sole maritime gateway, he encouraged China to expand its influence by integrating Bangladesh into its strategic network.

India's Northeast has long been a focal point of geo-strategic vulnerabilities, sharing borders with China, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. In the past, insurgent groups in the region operated from safe havens in Bangladesh—particularly during the 1990s and early 2000s. However, those camps were dismantled after Sheikh Hasina’s government took decisive action post-2009.