Hasina Maan Jayegi!

Arshad Mahmud April 30, 2001 00:00 IST Hasina Maan Jayegi! -0001-11-30T00:00:00+05:53

The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) may have pulled out of Padua village (Pyrdiwah to Indians) and though Bangladesh's foreign secretary Shed Moazzem Ali declared that "we would now try to get it (Padua) back through negotiations", questions are now being asked as to what prompted the bdr personnel to occupy the village which had been under 'Indian occupation' for the last 30 years.

The incident has reportedly shaken the Sheikh Hasina government which, according to a key functionary, is "upset, dismayed and surprised". The bdr, he says, certainly didn't have the political sanction to act the way it did. Hasina's crisis managers immediately went into a huddle to see if there was a broader plot to destabilise the government.

"We're still assessing the whole situation and it's too early to pass any judgement," says the official. Political and military analysts are as puzzled. "I'm not sure why it happened," says Prof Serajul Islam Chowdhury, a leading political analyst, who feels the ground situation on the border could have sparked the conflict.

Similarly, Maj Gen (Retd)...