Down Memory Lane: The 5 August Coup and the Calculated Overthrow of Sheikh Hasina -Part: 1

The so-called “protesters” who suddenly flooded Bangladesh’s roads and highways in early August 2024 were nothing more than opportunistic impostors—charlatans parading as revolutionaries.

These were not the voices of democratic dissent, but the shadows of a sinister plot. They appeared out of nowhere, only to vanish after delivering their assigned lines on the stage of political deception. Not one among them had been seen on the streets during the early days of unrest; they were strangers to the original heartbeat of resistance. These mercenaries of chaos surfaced not to serve the nation but to serve themselves, and the dark foreign masters pulling their strings.

As someone who has observed Bangladesh’s politics intimately from the field level since 1966, I can attest—without reservation—that what transpired in July and August of 2024 was no organic uprising. I walked those streets, braving curfews and surveillance, mingling with crowds, traversing roads, lanes, and alleyways to see with my own eyes the truth of this so-called upheaval. What I witnessed was not a spontaneous movement of the people—it was a cold-blooded operation executed by an unholy syndicate: the American deep state CIA, Pakistan’s ISI, Jamaat-e-Islami’s death squads, General Waker-uz-Zaman, the cunning Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, his loyalists, the BNP (a bastard political progeny born in the shadows of Dhaka cantonment), and a host of radical Islamist and extremist right-wing factions masquerading as liberators.

Prior to 5 August 2024, dangerous elements—vagrants, indoctrinated madrasa students, slum-dwellers, street criminals, vagabonds, and even known serial killers—were stealthily ferried into Dhaka from surrounding areas. These were not students but shock troops disguised as such. Massive financial resources were deployed to dress them up in their supplied uniforms and send them to designated strategic points in the capital. Their real identities were masked. Their orders were clear: converge on symbolic targets, create a narrative of youth-led unrest, and encircle Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s residence to pressure her government to collapse.

The media, complicit and corrupt, played its part with meticulous coordination. Fed with obscene amounts of money and blackmailed with promises of protection or threats of ruin, television channels and online platforms began broadcasting a well-rehearsed drama: Sheikh Hasina portrayed as a tyrant, the streets as sites of righteous rebellion, and the coup as a natural response to the supposed will of the people.

But this was no people’s swirling. It was a well-scripted, foreign-funded act of political arson. General Waker, a disgruntled figure beholden to external masters, deployed military elements in key sectors to back the illusion of legitimacy. The Jamaat-Shibir killing squads operated covertly, mingling with crowds, identifying targets, and even executing some of the very people they had lured into the protests. Their objective was ruthless: to manufacture martyrs and blame their deaths on HPM Sheikh Hasina’s government.

The numbers speak a tragic truth. Less than 2% of those involved in the initial protest movement were actual students. A staggering 98% were criminal elements imported into the capital with the explicit intent of destabilization. And when their usefulness expired, they were slaughtered—coldly, methodically, and without remorse—by their own handlers. The Jamaati butchers and their modern-day death squads turned on these disposable pawns to create the illusion of state-sponsored brutality. In reality, the regime of Sheikh Hasina had nothing to do with these deaths. But the optics were powerful, and the propaganda even more so receiving fatso cashbox from the American deep state, Pakistani ISI, Jamaati butchers.

Because of the red eyes by the American deep state CIA, the global media, deceived or willfully blind, swallowed the narrative whole. Reports of “student killings,” “police brutality,” and “authoritarian crackdowns” flooded Western headlines. Human rights organizations issued sanctimonious condemnations. Foreign governments expressed “deep concern.” All while the true perpetrators—the CIA, ISI, Jamaat, and their domestic enablers—operated with impunity, cloaked in silence and armed with false virtue.

Then came 5 August 2024—the day Bangladesh was unmoored from its democratic foundations. Under the barrel of military intimidation dictated by the American deep state CIA, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to resign. An elected government, widely credited for economic growth, infrastructure revolutions, and geopolitical stability, was dismantled overnight. And into the power vacuum stepped Muhammad Yunus, the seemingly benign Nobel laureate with serpentine cunning. On 8 August 2024, he was installed—illegally, immorally, and unconstitutionally—as the head of an interim government. His elevation was not born of any democratic consensus, but from backroom deals with foreign intelligence agencies and the traitorous collaboration of local forces hungry for power.

Since that dark moment, Bangladesh has been bleeding—a nation in distress, adrift in moral and institutional collapse. The economy, once surging, now flounders under mismanagement. The deadly mob violence has emerged as repression and fear drive citizens from their homes. Mob justice rules the streets, with law enforcement paralyzed or complicit. International agreements and mega-projects painstakingly crafted during Sheikh Hasina’s tenure are now under review or unraveling. Investors are spooked. The poor are suffering. And the nation’s sovereign dignity has been bartered away to foreign interests and proxy rulers.

Yet the silence of the so-called global conscience is deafening. The same West that championed democracy now turns a blind eye. Media outlets that once praised Bangladesh’s development remain mute. Human rights bodies, so vocal during Hasina’s rule, are now inexplicably restrained. The intelligentsia—both domestic and international—have buried their heads in fear or self-interest. Why? Because the puppeteers are powerful, and the price of defiance is steep.

Sheikh Hasina was not just a prime minister. She was the architect of a nation’s resurgence. Under her leadership, Bangladesh emerged from the shadows of poverty and instability to become a rising regional power. She defied extremists, rejected theocratic politics, and prioritized education, health, and infrastructure. She carried forward the spirit of 1971, the dream of a secular, just, and prosperous Bangladesh.

Her removal was not merely a political event—it was a symbolic decapitation of the nation’s conscience. It was the triumph of conspiracy over consensus, of manipulation over merit, of foreign interference over national will.

Those who conspired against her—Waker, Yunus, the Jamaati remnants, and their foreign sponsors—may have won the battle for now. But history is unforgiving. The truth, though buried beneath lies and blood, has a way of rising.

Bangladesh must remember. It must resist. And above all, it must reclaim.

This was not the first time foreign powers tried to strangle Bangladesh’s sovereignty with their invisible leash—but it must be the last. The people must awaken from this carefully induced slumber, peel away the layers of propaganda, and rise—peacefully, powerfully, and permanently—to restore their rightful government and dignity.

Sheikh Hasina’s return is not just a political necessity; it is a moral imperative. She is the lifeline for Bangladesh’s epic developments. 

(TO BE CONTINUED…)

Written by: Anwar A. Khan 

Author's Bio: The writer was a freedom fighter in 1971 to establish Bangladesh and is an independent political analyst based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, who writes on politics, political and human-centred figures, current and international affairs.

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