With the absorption of the PoJK, though, India will gain complete control over the Pir Panjal Mountain range which is currently divided by the LoC with its northwestern end extending into the PoJK region. This densely forested, hilly region has long been a path used for infiltration into India by Pakistan-linked terrorist operatives.
So, the low visibility forests and uphill terrain of the Pir Panjal Range that are now serving as launch pads for Pakistan-sponsored terrorists by aiding them in infiltration and concealment, could become a protective shield for India once it takes over PoJK.2
Moreover, if India manages to take back PoJK, it will come in direct contact with Afghanistan where Pakistan-sponsored anti-India terror organisations like Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) continue to enjoy safe haven despite the sporadic tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
A land connection with Afghanistan will grant India much better access to all the powerful groups inside that country including Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network who are leading the incumbent regime in Kabul, thereby empowering New Delhi to undertake measures that could take away the strategic depth that these anti-India terror organisations like JeM and LeT enjoy inside Afghanistan.
So, the prospect of retaking PoJK, however costly and painful, does hold promise of several benefits for India, quite like the swallowing of bitter pill for curing a disease permanently.
Therefore, Pakistan’s military leadership, who has just suffered a significant loss of its offensive and defensive capabilities in the aftermath of Pahalgam terror attack, must consider an eventuality of India moving to snatch away PoJK from its clutches, before it indulges in any further misadventure against India.
Pakistani Generals Are Drawing Inspiration From Their Chinese Handlers
In a previous article, published on May 4th, the Author had pointed out how China eased its tensions with India along the Line of Actual Control – the de-factor border between India and China – only to shift the contentious front for India along its western border with Pakistan, by going so far as to delegate this task to Pakistan’s ISI.
Per the Indian media reports citing unnamed Indian government sources, Pakistan’s ISI had been tasked by China to funnel substantial quantities of weapons into India’s J&K region to intensify anti-India activities and unrest amidst its border stand-off with India in Ladakh.
There was also a Pakistani media report citing an expert from a Chinese think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security (MoSS) – China’s external intelligence arm – as well as some other primary Chinese-language sources available in the public domain, which provide strong indications of China-Pakistan collusion in the orchestration of terror attacks inside India’s J&K region in recent years.
Beijing intends to arrest India’s rise as a ‘geopolitical competitor’ by keeping it pinned down in hostilities, however, in the wake of US’ second Trump administration having initiated the tariff war with China, it also needs increased access to Indian market for its export-oriented manufacturing enterprises.
So, Pakistan serves as a proxy for China that keeps India engaged and bleeding on its western border while China provides strategic protection for Pakistan’s misadventures by bringing to bear its huge comprehensive national power against India.
For instance, when China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) indulged in belligerence along the LAC in the Eastern Ladakh sector in 2020, India was forced to divert its troops from J&K’s Jammu region to Ladakh, leaving the former vulnerable to Pakistan-sponsored militancy.
Experts suggest that because of having to deploy troops on two fronts, India was forced to exercise restraint in the face of increasing Pakistan-sponsored terror attacks inside the Jammu region as well as ceasefire violations by the Pakistani Border Action Teams (BATS).
And now, it appears that Pakistan is trying to replicate China’s strategy by delegating the task of fomenting trouble inside India to Bangladesh’s military and intelligence apparatus, which has been cultivating close relations with Pakistan’s military establishment since the ouster of Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government in August last year.
During the 1990s, Pakistan’s ISI was highly active inside Bangladesh, funding militancy and insurgency in India’s northeastern states, however, that stopped after Sheikh Hasina came to power in 1996, as she cracked down upon ISI’s covert activities on Bangladesh’s soil as well as prosecuted several people who had colluded with Pakistan during the 1971 war of liberation.
However, the new interim government in Bangladesh headed by Muhammad Yunus, has been overseeing the revival of these past contacts between the political and security apparatus of Bangladesh and Pakistan.
In January this year, Bangladesh sent a six-member military delegation led by Lt Gen SM Kamrul Hasan, the Principal Staff Officer of the Armed Forces Division to Pakistan, which met with all Pakistan’s top military commanders in Rawalpindi, including the Pakistan Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir.
Within a week of this, Pakistan dispatched a delegation of four senior military officers to Bangladesh which included the ISI’s Director General of Analysis, Major General Shahid Amir Afsar, who has also served previously as Pakistan’s defense attache in China.
Per the Indian media reports citing anonymous sources, this visit of Pakistan’s delegation to Bangladesh entailed exploratory talks about establishing ISI’s covert presence in some strategic areas of Bangladesh including Cox’s Bazar, Ukhia, Teknaf, Moulvibazar, Habiganj and Sherpur.
Before the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 from Pakistan’s rule, the Pakistan Army used to provide support to insurgent outfits operating in India’s northeastern states like Nagaland and Mizoram from the aforesaid regions inside Bangladesh that lie along India’s northeast and eastern borders.
ISI is reportedly working together with the pro-Islamist and pro-Jamaat faction of Bangladesh Army, in particular, Lieutenant General Faizur Rahman, the quarter master general of Bangladesh Army, and Major General Mir Mushfique, the general officer commanding of 24 Division of Bangladesh army, who are known to have close ties with Pakistan’s ISI as well as the extremist elements inside Bangladesh.
When asked about these high-level military interactions between Pakistan and Bangladesh, the spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs’ Randhir Jaiswal said that India is keeping a very close eye on all activities in its immediate neighbourhood that could potentially affect its national security.
The interim government of Bangladesh has taken several measures to improve relations with Pakistan, such as the easing of trade restrictions with Pakistan which includes lifting the requirements for physical inspections of cargo as well as easing of visa restrictions for Pakistani citizens, particularly by doing away with the requirement for security clearance.
All of this has raised concerns about Pakistan’s ISI gaining easy access to Bangladeshi soil for its covert activities against India.
Per the media reports in early July, three Brigadier Generals of the Pakistani Army, Nadeem Ahmed, Mohammad Nadeem Talha and Saud Ahmed Rao entered Bangladesh under false identities, raising suspicions about their intentions.
Also, per a report by India Today last year, Pakistan-aligned Jamat elements have been regrouping in the Ambarkhana area of Sylhet in Bangladesh near the border with Indian States of Assam and Meghalaya.
Other than that, there have also been reports of Pakistan’s ISI as well as Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) actively assisting some anti-Indian insurgent groups.
For instance, key figures of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), an armed separatist insurgent group that operates in the Indian state of Assam, reportedly made a secret visit to Bangladesh in December 2024 where they were hosted by Bangladesh Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, shortly after which, reports began emerging at sometime around February 2025 that Pakistan’s ISIS was preparing to re-open training camps for the ULFA to destabilise India’s northeastern states of Tripura, Assam and Manipur.
Another such instance occurred earlier this month, when a report by ETV Bharat cited an investigation by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) which reportedly revealed that Bangladesh’s DGFI has been working to form two ethnic militant groups in the Indian state of Tripura, namely the Tripura Ham Bargha Ta Army (THBTA) and Mog National Party (MNP).
Per the NIA’s investigation, the United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF), another rebel group based in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh which seeks to form a fully autonomous Hill Tracts for ethnic Jumma people, has also reportedly come to an understanding with THBTA and MNP.
The THBTA aims to carve out Riang-dominated areas of North Tripura to establish a Riang state. It is headed by Hambai Riang and is said to have around 70 cadres at present, and is reportedly being assisted by the Bangladesh Army’s infantry brigade based in Khagrachari.
While MNP’s recruits, numbering around 50, are said to have been undergoing target shooting training at Bangladesh Army’s Bangalhalia camp in the Rajasthali sub-division of Rangamati district in the Chittagong Hill Tracts since the first week of December 2024.
The regular readers of Unravelling Geopolitics may have picked up on the similarities between the aforesaid reports of renewed Bangladesh-Pakistan collusion against India, and the reports of China-Pakistan collusion that had begun to emerge ahead of the Pahalgam terror attack in India’s J&K region in the month of April this year, which were discussed in extensive detail by the Author in a previous article.
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