Pakistan mission in Dhaka suspected of backing anti-Hasina movement

New Delhi: The civil society in Bangladesh has accused the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka of interfering in the internal affairs of the country through its tacit support and active guidance to the radical student protestors in the country.

This comes as the movement led by radical Jamaat-e-Islami and the opposition BNP intensified in Bangladesh. Several reports suggested that the Pakistan mission is in touch with a section of student protesters belonging to pro-Pakistan Jamaat, which is banned in Bangladesh.

The country has seen weeks of often violent protests over Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina-led government's decision to offer quota in government jobs to children of 1971 freedom fighters as opposed to family members of pro-Pakistan and anti-liberation figures during the country's freedom struggle.


Although the quota has been substantially diluted by the country's Supreme Court, the student-led protests are refusing to die down.

Bangladesh-Pakistan ties continue to be lukewarm as Islamabad is yet to offer an apology for the atrocities committed during the 1971 independence movement, which Bangladesh's ruling Awami League has termed as akin to genocide.

ET was the first to report that Jamaat's student wing, Islami Chattra Shibir, has hijacked the protest movement to launch an anti-Hasina campaign.

Experts claimed that the goal of Jamaat and BNP is to capture power through street protests and violence, and by unleashing a reign of terror.

"It is by now evident that a vested quarter led by the BNP and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and their student's wing appropriated the largely peaceful quota reform movement by a section of students to unleash a reign of terror, and anarchy," Bangladesh foreign ministry said in a recent statement on the current crisis.