Khoda Baksh Chowdhury, who is Special Assistant to the Bangladesh Chief Adviser Mohammad Yunus, called up Paris-based YouTuber and social media influencer Pinaki Bhattacharya to inform him about the so-called movement of troops of the 46th Infantry Brigade, Northeast News has learnt reliably.
Sources in Bangladesh’s internal security establishment revealed that a “concocted tale” of a movement of troops was spun by Khoda Baksh Chowdhury who reports directly to Home Ministry Adviser Lieutenant General (retd) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury.
However, verification of the chain of events indicated that sometime in the evening of October 11 some soldiers, aided by Military Police personnel, began removing old Army vehicles within Dhaka Cantonment before they were to be stockpiled at another location for final disposal.
It seems that Special Branch Additional Inspector General Ghulam Rasool got wind of the vehicle removal exercise.
Alarmed by this, he called up Khoda Baksh Chowdhury who may or may not have shared this with the Home Adviser Lt Gen Chowdhury.
“The most appropriate course of action for Rasool should have been to call up the DGFI chief and ascertained the truth,” a Bangladesh security official said.
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On his part, Khoda Baksh Chowdhury, acting without personally verifying why some troops and Military Personnel had exercised themselves in their task, promptly called up Bhattacharya and spun the actual events to suit the social media influencer’s objective.
Bhattacharya then put out a video in which he narrated the ‘story’ shared with him as one that signaled unusual movement of troops of the 46th Infantry Brigade.
This caused consternation in security circles, including the Army. But Khoda Baksh Chowdhury’s call to Bhattacharya
Repeated phone calls to Khoda Baksh Chowdhury, whose rank is equivalent to that of a minister of state, did not elicit any response.
He disconnected the line each time. He was appointed to this position on November 10, 2024.