In South Asia, truth is often the first casualty of geopolitical rivalry. The second is restraint. The two narratives now circulating around the tragic killing of Sharif Osman Hadi—one pushed by Pakistan’s Times of Islamabad on December 22, 2025, the other amplified through a fiery video message by Kamran Sayeed Usmani of Pakistan’s ruling PML-N—belong squarely in that tradition. They are less about justice for a murdered Bangladeshi youth leader and more about opportunistic politics, ideological projection, and a familiar attempt to pin regional instability in India.
Let us begin with the Times of Islamabad article, which declares—without judicial findings or verified intelligence—that India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) “role [is] confirmed” in Hadi’s assassination. That headline alone should set off alarm bells. Confirmed by whom? On what legal authority? Through which evidentiary process? None is offered. Instead, the article relies on insinuation: suspects allegedly fleeing “towards India,” protests erupting in Dhaka, and Hadi’s past criticism of Indian influence. In serious investigative journalism, correlation is not causation. In propaganda, it often suffices.
Bangladeshi authorities themselves, as the article grudgingly admits, have not produced “concrete evidence yet confirming foreign agency involvement.” Human rights organisations and the United Nations have called for impartial investigations—not for geopolitical finger-pointing. And yet, the article races ahead, constructing a narrative of Indian culpability that rests more on public anger than on proof. This is not analysis; it is advocacy masquerading as reporting. There is a deeper irony here. India, whatever one thinks of its regional posture, has consistently emphasised stability in Bangladesh—politically, economically, and strategically. A violent assassination that triggers riots, diplomatic crises, and election uncertainty in Dhaka would directly undermine Indian interests.
New Delhi on December 23, 2025
What the Times of Islamabad piece does accomplish is something else entirely: it internationalises Bangladesh’s internal trauma in a way that conveniently aligns with Pakistan’s long-standing rivalry with India. It reframes a domestic criminal investigation into a proxy battle of South Asian intelligence agencies. That move may sell papers or satisfy nationalist appetites. Still, it does nothing to help Bangladesh heal—or to uncover who actually financed and organised the killing, including the suspicious Tk127 crore trail mentioned in the report.
If the article’s tone is insinuating, Kamran Sayeed Usmani’s video is incendiary. Draped in religious rhetoric and historical grievance, Usmani openly threatens India with missile retaliation, invokes past military confrontations, and casts Pakistan as the armed guardian of Bangladesh’s sovereignty. This is not solidarity; it is incitement. And it is deeply irresponsible for a leader of the youth wing of a ruling party in a nuclear-armed state.
Usmani’s speech collapses complex political realities into a crude binary: Muslim resistance versus a so-called “Brahmin empire.” This is a sectarian language designed to inflame, not enlighten. Bangladesh’s founding history rejects precisely this framing. The country was born in 1971, not as an extension of pan-Islamic ideology, but as a rebellion against Pakistan’s own military and political dominance. To hear a Pakistani politician now invoke 1947 “principles” while glossing over 1971 is not just selective memory; it is historical revisionism.
Even more troubling is the casual invocation of missiles and military operations—“Operation Markah-e-Haq”—as if war were a rhetorical flourish rather than a catastrophe. Pakistan’s record of using militant rhetoric to compensate for strategic weakness is well documented. From Kargil to countless cross-border crises, bluster has often been substituted for sustainable policy. To drag Bangladesh into this pattern is to disrespect its sovereignty, not defend it.
India, by contrast, has responded to these developments with notable restraint. It rejected the allegations as baseless, summoned Bangladesh’s envoy to address concerns over attacks on its missions, and emphasized cooperation in apprehending suspects. This is what responsible regional power behaviour looks like: engagement through diplomacy, not megaphone threats. India understands that South Asia’s future depends less on ideological theatrics and more on economic integration, political stability, and crisis management.
The pro-Pakistan narrative also misreads Bangladesh itself. Bangladeshi politics is not a blank canvas onto which Islamabad can project its rivalries with New Delhi. The violent protests described in the Times of Islamabad article—including attacks on media houses and cultural institutions—were condemned by Bangladesh’s interim leadership. The interim government framed the assassination as an attempt to derail elections, not as a civilisational struggle against India. That distinction matters. It reflects Dhaka’s insistence on agency, something Pakistan’s rhetoric conspicuously denies.
There is, finally, a moral hazard in turning Hadi into a geopolitical symbol. Declaring him a “martyr” in a struggle against Indian “hegemony,” as both narratives do, risks obscuring the real questions: Who paid for the assassination? Who benefited politically from the ensuing chaos? And why are certain actors so eager to answer those questions with slogans instead of evidence?
Pakistan’s media and political class would do well to reflect on their own credibility. When threats replace diplomacy, and conjecture replaces proof, the result is not regional leadership but strategic self-isolation. India’s rise—economically, technologically, diplomatically—cannot be reversed by shouting louder or invoking missiles. It can only be engaged through realism, accountability, and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths at home.
Bangladesh deserves justice, not narrative warfare. South Asia deserves stability, not recycled rivalries. And the memory of Sharif Osman Hadi deserves better than to be weaponised in a contest where facts are optional, and threats are cheap. In this contest of stories, India’s restraint and insistence on evidence stand in sharper contrast than its critics might like to admit.
