Why West rushed to mourn the killing of an anti-India youth leader in Bangladesh

Sharif Osman Hadi was just 32 when he was shot in the head by masked assailants on December 12. He had never held office or led a major Bangladeshi political outfit in his life. Hadi was planning to contest the February 2026 elections from the high-profile Dhaka-8 constituency, but merely as an independent candidate.

In spite of this, Western governments rushed to mourn him. The US embassy in Dhaka posted a picture of a black ribbon, which symbolises grief, and offered its “deepest condolences” on social media. The British high commission said it was “deeply saddened” and the German embassy even flew its flag at half-mast in “solemn solidarity”.

These reactions irked many across the border because Hadi was known for being critical of India, especially for New Delhi’s support to Sheikh Hasina. After 15 years in power, Hasina was ousted by a student-led uprising in 2024 and has lived in India since.

Hadi was among the youth leaders at the forefront of the anti-Hasina protests in 2024. Bangladeshi social media has for days been rife with rumours alleging that his assassins were linked to Hasina’s party, the Awami League, and even to Indian intelligence agencies.

Former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal described Western countries’ response to the killing of Hadi as “diplomatically unusual” in an X post. “Normally such official statements are issued when the individual involved has international importance,” he added.

Other retired Indian diplomats concurred with Sibal. In fact, they went so far as to argue that the West’s reaction showed it was hostile to India’s interests in Bangladesh.

Foreign hand in Dhaka

Such suspicion of the West is not new. Indian commentators had been speculating about a “foreign hand” in Bangladesh even before the revolution took place.

Under Sheikh Hasina, Dhaka had expanded its security and energy cooperation with New Delhi and bilateral trade between the two countries grew exponentially. But the West, these experts noted, had its own interests to pursue in Bangladesh.

“The US has long wanted to have a strong military and political presence in the Bay of Bengal region,” Sanjay Bhardwaj, a professor at the School of International Studies in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, wrote in The Indian Express last year.

Days after Hasina’s ouster, The Economic Times carried allegations by her close associates about a US role in the uprising. Washington wanted Hasina out, these associates claimed, because she refused to cede control of the strategically crucial Saint Martin’s Island to it. This theory was dismissed by a White House spokesperson at that time.

However, the fact that the US President met with Muhammed Yunus, the leader of the interim government, just a few months after Hasina was deposed was seen as further proof that Washington approved of the uprising.

In the wake of Hadi’s murder and the responses it drew from Western countries, such theories have resurfaced.

Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, who served as the Indian high commissioner in Bangladesh for three years from 2007, elaborated on the purported role of Western powers in Dhaka. “Although we [India and the US] cooperate, the Americans are very careful about balancing other powers to ensure their hegemony,” he said. “The presumption is that any other powers big enough to offer competition must be constrained. Both the US and China have done it via Pakistan before and now they may be seeking another proxy in Bangladesh.”

As word about Hadi’s death spread last week, Bangladesh was once again plunged into lawlessness. In Dhaka, angry crowds burnt down newspaper offices and cultural centres. A Hindu man was lynched by a mob allegedly comprising his co-workers at a factory in Mymensingh.

Unlike Hadi’s killing, these incidents did not find mention in statements put out by Western governments.

The United Kingdom and Germany chose to condemn the attacks on journalists, but only obliquely through an inter-governmental body called the Media Freedom Coalition. Neither they nor the US commented on the lynching. Their silence sparked further criticism in India.

“There has been no response of any kind from Western countries to the deterioration of law and order in Bangladesh,” stated Veena Sikri, another former Indian ambassador. “I can only conclude that Western countries want an Islamist government in Bangladesh. They haven’t said a word about Awami League not being allowed to participate in the forthcoming elections.”

Sikri was referring to the ban that the Yunus regime placed on Sheikh Hasina’s party earlier this year. Scroll has previously reported how India’s repeated calls for an “inclusive” election – shorthand for allowing Awami League to contest – are souring its relationship with Bangladesh.

The former ambassador argued that by mourning the death of an “avowedly anti-India figure” even as they maintained a studied silence on the killing of Hindus as well as the ban on Awami League, Western diplomats were being partisan.

A friendly disagreement?

However, other analysts differed with this view.

Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy, an associate fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, said that the decades-old divergence over Bangladesh between the West and India did not necessarily mean that the former was siding with forces opposed to Indian interests.

“The West sees this as just an opportunity to engage with whoever comes to power next,” he explained. “They are trying to desperately show that they are not in any way going to support the Awami League. They are going to support the transition happening in Bangladesh, even if it means turning a blind-eye to whatever is happening.”

Shivamurthy harked back to the last elections in Bangladesh, which were mired in controversy because the Opposition boycotted them, alleging mass rigging. The US reportedly had reservations about the legitimacy of the mandate secured by Hasina but eventually caved in to Indian pressure.

With Hasina gone, it is no longer keen to be seen as following India’s lead in Bangladesh, he added.

Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington DC, even contended that there was good reason for the West to be recognising what Hadi meant to a post-Hasina Bangladesh. Hadi, he suggested, was consequential in a “symbolic” sense even though he was not a prominent political player.

“He really embodied what so many involved in those protests last year wanted to see: a break with the repressive past and a return to democracy,” Kugelman said. “It’s just symbolic. He was relatively young. He was very articulate. He was passionate about how things needed to get better in Bangladesh. So naturally you are going to get that type of response from the West.”

Kugelman did acknowledge the discomfort that the reactions from the West had caused in India. Hadi, he noted, was a vocal India critic and that helped him tap into the growing frustration that many Bangladeshis feel with what they see as Indian domination.

But he called on Indians to accept that New Delhi’s strategic partnership with Washington does not mean the two countries must see eye to eye on everything. “There needs to be a recognition that your friends are not always going to think like you do, articulate the same position and fixate on the same issues,” he said.

Journalist Kallol Bhattacherjee, senior assistant editor for foreign affairs at The Hindu, was also of the view that there was nothing out of the ordinary in Western diplomats taking an interest in Hadi’s assassination. After all, trying to gauge the mood on the street, he reasoned, is part of a diplomat’s job. “They are active and doing what is expected of them,” he argued.

Should these Western countries have condemned the lynching of the Hindu man in Mymensingh? Bhattacherjee believes the question is futile. Instead, he posed this counter-question: “If a violent incident takes place in Puerto Rico or the Carribean, which are in America’s backyard, will the American media ask why India is not talking about it?”

He added: “India may discuss it, but that naturally will happen later as India has its priorities in that region and this delayed response should not be interpreted in a negative way. Likewise, the Indian state is the rule-setter in South Asia. Why should our commentariat even bother about what others are saying about events that should concern us?”