Disinformation, deepfakes, and Dhaka: Inside dangerous anti-India narrative in Bangladesh

In a politically fragile Bangladesh, disinformation has quietly become one of the most effective tools for shaping public opinion. The aftermath of Islamist student leader Osman Hadi’s murder in December 2025 offers a sobering example of how an unresolved crime was swiftly transformed into a geopolitical accusation – one that strained India–Bangladesh relations, endangered minorities, and strengthened radical Islamist networks. All of this happened with alarming speed.

Since the jihadist coup of 2024, Pakistan’s military establishment and its intelligence arm, the ISI, have expanded their influence operations inside Bangladesh. Islamist organisations such as Jamaat-e-Islami, Ansar al-Islam, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and Hefazat-e-Islam have grown increasingly assertive, exploiting political uncertainty and a permissive street environment. None of this occurred overnight. Taking undue advantage of the situation, the Muslim Brotherhood’s offshoot Jamaat-e-Islami is gradually expanding its footprint, thus challenging Bangladesh’s Bengali soul.

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The attack on Osman Hadi on December 12 became the catalyst. Almost immediately, the interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus began suggesting that the perpetrators had fled to India. These claims surfaced without confirmed arrests, forensic findings, or publicly available intelligence inputs. Still, they circulated. And then hardened.

Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry summoned India’s High Commissioner and sought cooperation to prevent suspects from crossing the border. Soon after, officials hinted – carefully, but clearly – that India might have offered shelter to the attackers. New Delhi rejected the allegation outright. Indian law-enforcement agencies clarified that no such individuals were in custody and that no evidence supported Dhaka’s claims.

The consequences were swift. And ugly. Hindu communities across Bangladesh faced renewed intimidation and violence, while Indian diplomatic missions became targets of mob aggression. The pattern was familiar to anyone watching closely: externalise blame, inflame emotion, then let Islamist street power consolidate itself under the cover of outrage.

Yet the narrative refused to disappear.

Almost immediately, authorities began suggesting – without presenting forensic or legal proof – that Hadi’s killers had already crossed the border. But this theory of Hadi’s attackers fleeing to India was originally conceived by Pakistani ISI.

The cornerstone of this narrative was laid by a journalist affiliated with Al Jazeera’s i-Unit, who claimed that Faisal Karim Masud – described as Hadi’s killer – had crossed into India and taken shelter in Guwahati, Assam. To support this assertion, a still photograph allegedly showing Masud with an “accomplice” was circulated, with the claim that it had been obtained by intercepting the killers’ mobile phones. Following this, Syeda Rizwana Hassan, Advisor overseeing the Information Ministry, publicly stated that India had assured Dhaka of extraditing Hadi’s killers if they had indeed crossed into Indian territory.

Yet this statement came even as Indian authorities, including the West Bengal Police, made it clear that no such individuals had been arrested in India and that no evidence supported the allegation of their presence on Indian soil. Despite this, Dhaka continued summoning the Indian envoy and reiterating concerns about India allegedly “giving shelter” to Hadi’s killers – an approach that emboldened anti-India elements and coincided with a disturbing uptick in attacks on Hindu communities.

Subsequent scrutiny revealed that the image and video circulated by Al Jazeera were not authentic. They were, in fact, generated using deepfake technology. The video was aggressively amplified on the social media platform ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter) by an account named “Pakistan Defence”, which falsely claimed that Al Jazeera had “confirmed” Indian involvement in Osman Hadi’s killing.

The disinformation ecosystem expanded further when an obscure website, Times of Islamabad, published a couple of propaganda pieces on December 22, 2025, alleging a “confirmed role” of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) in the assassination. The article relied entirely on innuendo, conjecture, and the same unverified claim that the killers had fled to India. These coordinated narratives bore all the hallmarks of an influence operation.

The propaganda edifice began collapsing on December 30, 2025, when Faisal Karim Masud – branded by some as Hadi’s killer – released a video statement claiming he had fled Bangladesh immediately after the attack and travelled to Dubai, not India. He asserted that the murder was carried out by Jamaat-Shibir operatives and categorically denied any involvement in the killing. According to Masud, his association with Osman Hadi was strictly business-related.

An image of Masud’s UAE visa was later obtained from a source, further debunking the “India escape” narrative.

Within 24 hours, Masud released a second video statement, reportedly from Dubai, stating unequivocally, “I have not in any way, initially or later, been involved. This is completely false.” He described the accusations against him as a “witch hunt” and said he had left Bangladesh to protect himself.

The blueprint, according to informed assessments, was chalked out from the ISI’s so-called “Dhaka Cell”. Following the murder, a coordinated disinformation campaign was unleashed, falsely claiming that the killers had fled to India, then to Meghalaya’s Garo Hills, even circulating a random TikTok video depicting two deepfake images and labelling them as Hadi’s killers.

Security analysts note that the episode fits a broader pattern of influence operations linked to Pakistan’s ISI. By externalising blame, Islamist networks were able to deflect scrutiny, mobilise supporters, and consolidate political leverage. The rise in attacks on Hindu communities during this period underscored the real-world cost of such narratives. These were not abstract consequences.

The Osman Hadi case underscores how disinformation, once amplified by political interests, can destabilise societies and distort accountability. For Bangladesh, the challenge lies not only in identifying the true perpetrators of violence but also in resisting narratives that erode pluralism and national cohesion. For the region, it serves as a reminder – a bleak one – that in an age of weaponised information, truth is often the first casualty.

(Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is an award-winning journalist, writer, and Editor of the newspaper Blitz. He specialises in counterterrorism and regional geopolitics. Follow him on X: @Salah_Shoaib. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)