The legal adviser to Bangladesh’s interim administration, Dr Asif Nazrul, allegedly met a senior local Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative Izhar in Dhaka a day after the Pahalgam terrorist attack, a development that raises suspicions of involvement of the current dispensation in Dhaka in promoting extremism against India, said people familiar with the matter. The meeting is being viewed as a serious threat to regional stability, raising fears of increasing proximity between radical groups and the interim Bangladesh regime, Dhaka-based people said on condition of anonymity, adding that the details of the meeting were yet to emerge.
Izhar has a history of orchestrating terrorism plots from Bangladeshi soil, including an aborted attack on the Indian High Commission in Dhaka in 2009. He allegedly maintains deep ties with Hefazat-e-Islam, a Deobandi Islamist group established in Bangladesh in 2010. Izhar, who faces more than 25 terrorism charges in Bangladesh, has been under the radar of the Bangladesh security establishment since 2009.