Dhaka, Bangladesh: A year after Sheikh Hasina resigned on August 5, 2024, amid unprecedented student protests and mounting international pressure, new accounts from within the Awami League point to the alleged role of the American “deep state” in destabilising her government.
According to senior Awami League party sources, at least three ministers in Hasina’s cabinet—Private Investment and Industry Adviser Salman F Rahman, Law Minister Anisul Haq and Minister of State for Information Mohammad Arafat—were “subverted” and guided to act in ways that harmed the interests of the government in the critical weeks before the regime’s collapse.
Rahman and Haq were mysteriously arrested from Dhaka’s Sadarghat on August 13, 2024, while Arafat’s whereabouts remain unknown. Several Awami League insiders and officials in Bangladesh’s security establishment believe Arafat may have fled abroad using Western contacts.
Alleged links with US officials
Sources said that the three maintained regular contact with serving and retired US State Department officials in Bangladesh and abroad since at least 2023. Former ambassador Peter Haas, Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu, and ex-ambassador Marcia Bernica were repeatedly named in this context.
A former cabinet minister said Rahman—nicknamed “Darbesh”—effectively cut off colleagues from direct access to Hasina. During Hasina’s April–May 2023 trip to Japan and the US, Rahman stayed separately at Washington’s St. Regis Hotel, where he allegedly met Bernicat privately. A planned project for a pro-government media platform was abruptly scrapped after his meeting with American interlocutors.
Hasina herself reportedly recognised US pressure by September 2023, during her final US visit as prime minister. She listed six demands being pushed by Washington: joining the Quad, signing GESOMIA and ACSA defence deals, granting US companies access to 26 oil and gas blocks and alignment on Myanmar under the US Burma Act. While Hasina resisted, insiders claim Rahman kept close watch over her engagements.
Student movement and internal paralysis
The student protests of July–August 2024, which paralysed Dhaka, exposed deep divisions within the Awami League. Sources allege that a televised remark by Arafat—that the government had “plenty of bullets” to crush demonstrations—was a deliberate provocation that escalated public anger.
On August 3, Hasina chaired a high-level security meeting where Army Chief Gen Waker-uz-Zaman allegedly told the Home Minister, “Do not worry, the Army will take over.” Hasina refrained from dismissing him, though advisers urged caution.
Party insiders say plans for a massive Awami League counter-rally in Dhaka—with up to half a million supporters—were suddenly cancelled under pressure from Salman F Rahman and Hasina’s sister, Sheikh Rehana. Leaders were told to obey Rehana’s instruction “to avoid bloodshed.” The cancellation left the ruling party unable to counter the combined strength of students, BNP activists, Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir on the streets.
Hasina’s fall and aftermath
By August 5, Hasina resigned and left for New Delhi. Sources close to her recall her “perturbed” state in the months leading up to her ouster, when she confided that US pressure threatened her government’s survival.
Awami League functionaries now claim that the regime change operation had been in motion since at least 2018, following Bangladesh’s disputed election, but accelerated from 2023 onward. An Indian intelligence assessment in mid-2022 had already warned that Haas was part of “a broader plan to bring down Hasina’s government.”
Party leaders in Kolkata, reflecting on the fall, accused the Awami League’s leadership of stifling internal debate. “There was no honest criticism, no evaluation. Leaders feared losing posts if they spoke candidly,” one source admitted.
China factor and India’s anger
Adding to the turmoil, Hasina’s July 2024 visit to China — which ended abruptly a day earlier than scheduled—is now seen as a strategic blunder. Party insiders believe the visit unsettled India, traditionally a close ally, and compounded Hasina’s isolation.
Today, nearly a year after the fall, Awami League leaders privately acknowledge that while the US “deep state” infiltrated the party’s upper ranks, Hasina’s reliance on a small circle of advisers, her failure to act decisively against dissent within her cabinet, and her miscalculated China outreach hastened the regime’s collapse.