A day after the death of anti-India Bangladeshi leader Sharif Osman Hadi, Pakistan launched a coordinated propaganda campaign on social media to implicate India in his killing, an investigation by NDTV reveals.
NDTV's Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) team identified nearly three dozen accounts on X spreading false claims alleging the involvement of Indian intelligence agencies in the murder of Hadi, who was set to contest the general elections in February.
A radical Islamic leader, Hadi was convenor of student platform Inquilab Mancho. He was shot by masked gunmen last week while leaving a mosque in Dhaka, and died in a hospital in Singapore on Thursday.
Hadi, 32, was an outspoken critic of India, where Bangladesh's ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina has taken refuge since fleeing Dhaka in the wake of the 2024 uprising.
His death has triggered unrest, with protesters across the South Asian nation demanding the arrest of those responsible.
The killing set off protests in Dhaka with arsonists torching several buildings, including two major newspapers deemed to favour India as well as a prominent cultural institution.
Mobs also threw stones at the Indian High Commission in the port city of Chattogram, where India has since suspended visa services.
Fuelled in part by growing anti-India sentiments in the majority Muslim nation, the violence this week also saw a Hindu garment worker killed following allegations of blasphemy.
On the day Hadi's body was flown in Bangladesh, X accounts that seem to have links to the Pakistani government and military began circulating posts with identical text and posters using the hashtag #India_Hadi_Killer to push the anti-India narrative.
"Bangladesh's youth will not sit peacefully until they remove Indians from Bangladesh," a poster read. Another said: "Indian p*g RAW is involved in Hadi's murder."
Many of these posters were later amplified by Pakistani journalists and government officials.
Analytics data shows the hashtag #India_Hadi_Killer appeared in more than 1,700 posts on X between December 19 and December 23. As many as 385 posts with this hashtag were published in a single hour - between 12 pm and 1 pm on December 19 - according to social listening tool Talkwalker.
Pak Govt-Linked Accounts
These accounts bear all the hallmarks of profiles created solely to propagate the government's official narrative. They parrot the Pakistan government, military, and the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) on a range of issues, including relations with India and Afghanistan, security threats posed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and the unrest in Balochistan.
They posted similar content within short time frames to amplify specific messages among Pakistani audiences. These accounts routinely promote Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, while portraying jailed former PM Imran Khan as a national security threat. They also defend government schemes and counter criticism of Pakistan's federal and provincial administrations run by PPP.
Many of these accounts have already been banned in India for spreading misinformation and propaganda. Typical to the characteristic of social media influence operations, many accounts of the network re-posted newly-created fake profiles that regularly publish bold photos of models to gain more followers and engagement. These 'sockpuppet' accounts would later be used to spread misinformation.
The propaganda network appears to be operated by a Pakistan-based digital marketing agency named KdgiM Solutions, apparently run by a woman named Amna. Several accounts shared a post by KdgiM Solutions boasting about its success in making a Pakistan Tape-ball Premier League event trend on X in Pakistan.
Anti-India Sentiments in Bangladesh
Since the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August last year, Bangladesh has witnessed a surge in anti-India sentiment. Leaders of the July 2024 movement accuse New Delhi of "hegemony" and "interference".
This period has seen growing closeness between Dhaka's interim government and Pakistan, alongside the rise of Islamic extremists in Bangladesh.
Speculation that Hadi's murder was linked to a "Greater Bangladesh" map he published days before has further fuelled anti-India rhetoric.
Bangladesh, a nation of 170 million people, has been in turmoil as it gears up for general elections in February, the country's first since the fall of Hasina's autocratic government.
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