White collar-terror probe pushes agencies to audit Kashmiri MBBS students in Bangladesh

The shift in Bangladesh’s political landscape has triggered new concerns for Indian students studying in private medical colleges across Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet and Rajshahi, say sources

Srinagar: After Pakistan, Bangladesh has now come under the scanner as Indian intelligence agencies begin reviewing Kashmiri students pursuing MBBS degrees there, fearing fresh radicalisation risks after the sudden collapse of the Sheikh Hasina government in August 2024.

Sources said security agencies have launched a quiet assessment of Kashmiri medical students in Bangladesh, seven years after they cracked down on the Pakistan route that once drew hundreds of Valley aspirants and later emerged as a recruitment and funding channel for separatist groups.

They say the shift in Bangladesh’s political landscape — marked by street unrest, the return of hardline Islamist groups, and a weakening security apparatus — has triggered new concerns for Indian students studying in private medical colleges across Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet and Rajshahi.
In the 2000s and 2010s, Pakistan served as the primary foreign destination for Kashmiri MBBS aspirants. Investigations by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Jammu and Kashmir police had revealed a network in which separatist leaders and Pakistan-based handlers “arranged” medical seats for Kashmiri students in exchange for money that partly funded militant outfits.

Some graduates returned with documented links to hardline groups, prompting India to bar Pakistani degrees for registration and enforcing tight surveillance on travel and admissions.

As that route closed, Bangladesh became the preferred alternative, offering easier admissions, lower fees and perceived safety. By the mid-2010s, hundreds of Kashmiri students were enrolling annually in Bangladeshi medical colleges, many through private consultancies. Until last year, the Hasina government’s counter-extremism posture kept security concerns muted.

But with the government toppled, senior officials say the situation has changed dramatically. The resurgence of Islamist organisations, anti-India rhetoric on campuses, and a weakened state structure have raised “credible concerns” about ideological exposure. While no Kashmiri student has been officially linked to any radical network in Bangladesh, agencies argue the environment has become “unpredictable and penetrable”.

The alarm has grown louder after recent arrests connected to a “white-collar terror module”, in which doctors and highly educated professionals were found providing logistical and technical support to terror outfits. Investigators fear that professional campuses — especially foreign ones with limited oversight — could be exploited again, much like Pakistan-based institutions were two decades ago.

A senior official said India, however, cannot impose a blanket ban on MBBS studies in Bangladesh due to diplomatic sensitivities and the sheer number of students already enrolled. “Instead, agencies have begun mapping student cohorts, tracking consultancies facilitating admissions, and coordinating with medical councils and hospitals to tighten background checks on foreign-trained doctors,” he revealed.

The official stressed the exercise is preventive, not accusatory. “Yet the worry is unmistakable: the foreign medical pipeline that once linked parts of Kashmir to Pakistan-backed separatism may now, under Bangladesh’s unstable transition, become vulnerable once again,” he added.