R&AW Chief Parag Jain Leads Security Delegation’s Dhaka Visit Amid India-Bangladesh Tensions

A four-member high-level Indian security and intelligence delegation, including Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) Secretary Parag Jain, met Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s Defence Affairs Adviser in Dhaka on Monday.

According to Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star, Jain held talks with Brig Gen (Retd) Dr AKM Shamsul Islam, the defence affairs adviser to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman.

The Indian delegation arrived at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 2:56 pm on August 9 for an “official visit” at the invitation of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), Bangladesh’s principal military intelligence agency.

Besides R&AW chief Parag Jain, the delegation included Ashwin Mukund Kotnis, a 2003-batch Tamil Nadu cadre officer currently on central deputation. Rahul Negi and Shaibal Roy Chowdhury are understood to be the other two members of the team.

The visit comes days after Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry issued a strongly worded statement expressing “outrage” over former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina holding her first virtual press conference from India, where she is currently in exile.

While India had distanced itself from the event, Bangladesh used unusually strong language in its response, referring to Hasina as a “genocider” and describing her former government as a “mafia enterprise”.