In a development that could reshape South Asia’s security dynamics, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has reportedly established a new intelligence cell within Bangladesh, a move that has set off alarm bells in New Delhi. Operating allegedly through Pakistan’s High Commission in Dhaka, this ISI unit marks a calculated effort to revive Pakistan’s covert presence along India’s vulnerable eastern flank.
A Dangerous Shift in Dhaka’s Strategic Landscape
According to regional intelligence reports, the new ISI cell is not a symbolic expansion, it represents a full-fledged operational network. The plan, sources say, divides Bangladesh into five strategic zones, each overseen by Pakistani military officers, including a brigadier, two colonels, and four majors. Pakistan’s Air Force and Navy officers are also expected to join in the coming months.
The timing is no coincidence. The report links this renewed engagement to the recent political realignment in Dhaka following the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government and the rise of an interim administration under Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus. Under Hasina, Bangladesh had pursued a close counterterrorism partnership with India. Now, Pakistan appears to be re-entering a space that was once firmly sealed off.
India’s Eastern Border – A New Frontline
India’s 4,096-kilometre border with Bangladesh is one of the world’s longest and most porous. For decades, India’s security establishment has viewed this border as both a lifeline and a liability – a line that connects people, trade, and culture, but also one that can easily be exploited by hostile intelligence networks.
The establishment of an ISI cell so close to this boundary is a clear signal: Pakistan is no longer confining its strategic contest with India to the western theatre. The eastern frontier, with its complex demography, history of insurgency, and emerging Islamist undercurrents, offers fertile ground for intelligence manipulation and hybrid warfare.
Echoes of the Past, Dangers of the Future
This is not the first time the ISI has been linked to operations in Bangladesh. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Dhaka served as a base for various Pakistan-backed networks funnelling counterfeit currency, fake Indian IDs, and arms into northeastern India. That infrastructure was dismantled after Hasina’s rise to power. The reactivation of such networks now would undo nearly fifteen years of counter terror cooperation.
If true, Pakistan’s renewed presence could lead to a revival of old patterns, funding of extremist groups, reactivation of sleeper cells, and economic sabotage through fake currency and cyber operations.
A Blow to India’s Strategic Balance
For India, this move complicates an already volatile regional environment. On one hand, China’s growing economic and naval footprint in the Bay of Bengal has already challenged India’s maritime dominance. On the other, an ISI-backed intelligence grid in Bangladesh could create a twin pressure point, one that converges China’s long-term influence operations with Pakistan’s asymmetric tactics.
In geopolitical terms, this represents a soft encirclement strategy: Beijing builds the ports, Islamabad builds the networks. Bangladesh’s cooperation, even if tacit, would allow Pakistan to exploit India’s Northeast, a region already beset by migration pressures, identity fault lines, and strategic vulnerabilities.
India’s Response Must Be Clear and Coordinated
New Delhi’s challenge is twofold. First, it must reassess its diplomatic and intelligence engagement with the interim government in Dhaka, ensuring that cooperation on counter terrorism and border security remains intact. Second, India must expand its eastern counterintelligence capabilities, including satellite surveillance, maritime monitoring, and joint patrols along key infiltration corridors in Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura.
A deeper engagement with pro-India civil and political institutions in Bangladesh will also be essential. The current political vacuum offers both a threat and an opportunity, to reassert India’s influence before hostile actors fill the gap.
The Return of the Shadow War
The ISI’s reported entry into Bangladesh is more than an intelligence operation, it’s a strategic statement. It signals Pakistan’s intent to surround India not just militarily, but psychologically and diplomatically. It exploits the very geography that once defined South Asia’s liberation, the Bengal delta , and seeks to turn it into a zone of quiet instability.
For India, this is a wake-up call. The next frontier of the subcontinent’s shadow war is not in the mountains of Kashmir, it may well be in the wetlands of Sylhet and the riverine borderlands of Assam.
