India Had Nothing To Gain: Why Hadi’s Killing Was Not An Indian Operation | India News

The assassination attempt on Bangladeshi student leader Motaleb Shikder in Khulna, just days after the murder of Sharif Osman Hadi in Dhaka, has added a new and terrifying layer to the political crisis in Bangladesh. Two consecutive high-profile shootings in different cities point to an expanding pattern of domestic political violence rather than a singular, isolated act. More importantly, they clarify a question that has been on the agenda since Hadi’s death: Who, if anyone, stood to gain strategically from Hadi’s killing?

A serious, incentives-based analysis offers a clear answer. India did not do this.

Strategic reasoning begins with a simple test: who benefits, who pays, and whether the outcome achieves a rational goal. In Hadi’s case, the immediate consequences were predictable and visible. The shooting triggered nationwide unrest, attacks on media outlets, escalating street protests and diplomatic rows at a time when Bangladesh was already in a delicate post-transition phase. These were not unforeseen side effects. These were the most likely consequences of a political assassination in a volatile environment.

For India, each of these outcomes represents cost, not leverage.

Bangladesh’s stability is not a trivial issue for New Delhi. It directly affects border management, internal security, trade corridors, transit regulations and the broader balance in East South Asia. A destabilized Bangladesh creates enforcement gaps that benefit violent spoilers, not neighboring states seeking predictability. When unrest spreads from the capital to regional centres, as the Khulna attack demonstrated, these risks are magnified rather than dissipated.

A rational strategic actor avoids actions that create cascading instabilities that he cannot calibrate or contain. The idea that India would deliberately spark such a cycle is contrary to basic risk management logic.

The second flaw in the “outside hand” thesis lies in a misunderstanding of how political violence works. The killing of a prominent protest leader rarely neutralizes a movement. It often turns the individual into a symbol. Death simplifies narratives, eliminates political complexity, and intensifies emotions. Martyrdom is not an accident of politics; it is a force multiplier.

Hadi’s death followed this familiar trajectory. Nationwide mourning, intensified mobilization, and hardened discourse emerged almost immediately. The subsequent shooting of another student leader further reinforces this dynamic, signaling to supporters that the struggle is existential rather than transactional. Creating martyrs is strategically counterproductive for any actor seeking stability or de-escalation.

This is precisely why state actors who prioritize regional order tend to avoid such interventions. The pushback is not just moral or diplomatic; in working order. When a movement moves from negotiation to symbolism, control over outcomes narrows dramatically.

India’s broader strategic culture reinforces this logic. For decades, New Delhi has expressed its preference for regional engagement that respects sovereignty; This is not because of idealism, but because intervention has historically proven costly and unpredictable. Attributions made in politically charged environments are rarely clean. Even unsubstantiated allegations can shape public opinion, strain bilateral channels, and lock governments into defensive postures that outlast the initial incident.

In the case of Bangladesh, the reputational risk alone would outweigh any conceivable tactical gain. Being perceived as a destabilizing force in the neighboring transition undermines India’s long-term credibility as a regional stabilizer; this is an asset slowly built and quickly lost.

The resulting pattern of violence further undermines the logic of external regulation. Two attacks, carried out in rapid succession in different locations and whose perpetrators remain unidentified, point even more convincingly to domestic strife, implementation gaps and violent spoilers operating within a stressed political system. Transitional periods are particularly vulnerable to such dynamics, when competing actors test boundaries and institutions struggle to reassert control.

Most importantly, internal explanations are sufficient. They don’t need imported conspiracies to make sense of events. When the simplest explanation fits the facts, adding external actors adds noise, not clarity.

This is important because misdiagnosis has its own costs. Externalizing blame may provide temporary political relief, but it distracts from the hard work of stabilization: credible investigations, institutional reform, accountability, and de-escalation. The longer violence is framed as externally imposed, the longer these internal corrections are delayed.

From this perspective, the result is clear. Targeting Hadi will not benefit India’s interests. It would hurt them. The unrest that followed, now exacerbated by a second shooting, shows why political assassinations are blunt tools that rarely serve strategic ends.

Bangladesh’s path back to stability will depend on confronting internal fault lines, not on identifying foreign bad guys. Ultimately, strategy is not about what seems reasonable in the heat of crisis, but about what aligns with incentives, outcomes, and long-term interests.