Shortly after the departure of a three-member team of Indian Military Intelligence officers from Dhaka on October 16, Bangladesh Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman paid unscheduled visits to two old airstrips in two districts adjoining the Bangladesh-India border.
Gen Zaman and a retinue of subordinate colleagues from the Bangladesh Army flew on three helicopters that took them from Dhaka to Lalmonirhat first before they toured Thakurgaon, where they inspected two World War II-era airstrips. Lalmonirhat and Thakurgaon are districts bordering West Bengal in India.
Even as confusing signals emerged from Bangladesh on the arrival of the Indian team on October 14, with Bangladesh Army headquarters seeking to keep the visit low-key, well-placed sources confirmed the arrival of the visitors led by a major general who is an additional director general in India’s MI. A brigadier and a colonel accompanied this major general.
Sources in Bangladesh’s security establishment said that the visit was not publicised as some students in the host country had planned to put up a demonstration in Dhaka following the arrival of the Indian team.
This also explains the modest reception that was accorded to the visitors by a particular unit of the Bangladesh Army based out of a coastal district adjoining the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.
After landing in Dhaka on October 14, the Indian team held a series of meetings with several units of the Bangladesh Army, the Operations and Plan and Intelligence directorates of the Armed Forces Division, Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, Army Aviation Group, Adjutant General and Quarter Master General’s branches and the Army Supply Unit.
The Indian visitors are said to have brought along gifts that were given away to formation heads of the host country officers.
While neither the Indian Army nor the Bangladesh Army made any move to publicise the visit, sufficient misinformation was shared, and a “smokescreen” was created to downplay the Indians’ four-day sojourn in a country with whom bilateral ties have eroded considerably since August 2024.
Bangladesh’s Army headquarters had issued a fairly detailed but “restricted” notification on October 9, detailing the “coordination conference” visit of the Indian MI team led by Major General Kundan Kumar Singh. Two days later, a “required” meeting of representatives of various Bangladesh Army units and formations was held in the Army Multipurpose Complex’s conference room. The heads of these units and formations were briefed on the visit and issued instructions on their respective meetings with the Indian MI team.
However, General Zaman’s visit to two old air bases in Thakurgaon and Lalmonirhat, though underplayed, is considered crucial even as sources pointed out that these two facilities might assume operational status in the near future.
Interestingly, Bangladesh Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman, who was scheduled to travel to Saudi Arabia for an official four-day visit beginning on October 14, cancelled this trip. Earlier, he cancelled a visit to New Delhi to attend two conferences, including one related to UN peacekeeping missions and the other on counter-terrorism in South Asia, which were to be held between October 14 and 16.
On October 16 afternoon, travelling with his own retinue of subordinate officers of the Bangladesh Army, Gen Zaman made a sudden visit to the abandoned air strip at Thakurgaon, which is located close to India’s ‘Chicken’s Neck’ corridor.
ALSO READ: Gwyn Lewis, UN Resident Coordinator in Dhaka, all set to move to Yangon
Three helicopters were used to carry Gen Zaman and his colleagues to the Thakurgaon airstrip, where he drove an Army vehicle on the runway’s concrete layer. Earlier in the day, he visited the Lalmonirhat airstrip. Later in the evening, after a short stay, Gen Zaman left for Saidpur in Nilphamari district.
