Dr. Muhammad Yunus has emerged in Bangladesh not as a healer or leader, but as a master manipulator of global perception. His recent 'tour' across major Western media—BBC Bangla, BBC India, Sky News UK—paints a farcical portrait of calm governance and popular legitimacy. This grotesque misrepresentation is not mere delusion. It is a calculated deception. While the nation burns, Yunus smiles before foreign cameras, reciting platitudes and falsities, masking tyranny under the guise of reform.

The truth? Bangladesh is hemorrhaging. Its streets are ruled by mobs. Its institutions have disintegrated into husks. Its economy has collapsed. And its unlawful regime, headed by an unelected, manipulating Nobel laureate-turned-autocrat, is a façade constructed not through democratic will but through covert manipulation, foreign collusion, and military complicity.

Extremism in the open

In recent interviews, Dr. Yunus boldly asserted that “law and order are better than ever,” that “reforms are underway,” and that “the international community stands united” with his government. Each claim is not just a distortion—it is a bald-faced lie.

On the streets of Dhaka, terror reigns, as well as across the country. Anti-establishment students are roughed up for speaking out. Extremist mobs roam with impunity. Police stations are besieged and overrun, as in the shocking Shahbag incident. Women are threatened into silence. Hindu families are forced to cancel weddings under threat of religious violence. Terrorist groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir and Ansarullah Bangla Team now march openly in the capital. Their banners wave not in secret but in public squares—unopposed, unchallenged, unchecked under the Yunus led puppet regime installed by CIA in collusion with ISI, Jamaat-Shibir butchers, BNP like an illegitimate political squad, some extremum right-winger Islamist Jihadists.

Even Yunus’ own advisors tell on the mask. The Home Affairs Advisor, only weeks ago, publicly admitted that mob rule has overtaken the state’s ability to enforce law. “There’s nothing we can do when the people become unruly,” he confessed—a statement of despair, not governance. And yet, Dr. Yunus continues his charade on foreign airwaves, insulated from accountability and emboldened by global naivety.

Nation in despair

If the streets are unsafe, the economy is worse. In just ten months under Yunus’ stewardship, Bangladesh has suffered the most catastrophic economic contraction since independence. Over 300,000 workers have lost their livelihoods. Industrial giants like Beximco and Gazi Group have shuttered. Not a single foreign investment has entered the country since the August 2024 coup. And contrary to Yunus’ televised reassurances, not a single instalment of IMF aid has arrived since his ascent to power. Switzerland, once a development ally, has not merely distanced itself—it has entirely suspended all aid.

Meanwhile, USAID and the World Food Programme have both slashed support to Rohingya refugees, underscoring the world’s disillusionment with this regime. The illusion of international backing, which Yunus so eagerly performs for cameras, is collapsing beneath the weight of diplomatic silence and financial abandonment.

Theater of the absurd

Perhaps the most theatrical of Yunus’ deceptions is his attempt to center the national narrative on the mysterious Aynaghar detention centers. These alleged secret prisons, spotlighted in an exclusive Sky News report, have become the cornerstone of Yunus’ international justification for authoritarian control.

But the questions surrounding this spectacle are manifold and damning. Why did it take six months to “discover” these facilities? Why were only foreign reporters granted access? Why have local journalists been gagged? And why, most disturbingly, were Yunus’ companions at these sites’ individuals with known links to extremist networks and organized crime?

The Aynaghar story is not an exposé—it is a performance. A diversion. A tool of propaganda designed to reframe Yunus as a savior rather than the architect of a democratic apocalypse.

Local betrayals

The roots of this crisis trace back to August 5, 2024, when a foreign-backed coup unseated the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Under the guise of student protests—manipulated and amplified by far-right religious factions—the foundation of legitimate governance was shattered.

Dr. Yunus did not ascend through democratic consensus. He was installed—by outside powers with imperial interests, by an opportunistic military leadership led by General Waker, and by Islamist forces including Jamaat-e-Islami and BNP affiliates who had once collaborated in the genocide of 1971. The very ghosts of Pakistan’s military rule now roam freely under this Western-endorsed regime.

In place of democracy, Bangladesh has inherited a puppet government led by a man who weaponizes his Nobel Peace Prize as both sword and shield—attacking critics while hiding from accountability. Behind Yunus stands not the will of the people, but the shadowy machinery of foreign espionage and geopolitical manipulation.

Global silence

That the West has largely remained silent—or worse, complicit—is a stain on the moral conscience of the international community. Where is the UN’s promised debiased investigation into the atrocities of July and August 2024? Where are the statements from human rights organizations that once loudly decried abuses under legitimate governments?

What we witness instead is a grotesque double standard: praise for Dr. Yunus, silence over student deaths, indifference to the rise of extremism. Volker Türk’s United Nations remains asleep. The BBC, Sky News, and others offer Dr. Yunus the stage—unquestioned, unchallenged, unexamined.

It is a chilling irony that those who profess global justice remain mute while Bangladesh is plunged into darkness.

Bangladesh bleeds

Yet, even as Bangladesh suffers under this illegitimate regime, the spirit of its people remains unbroken. The same soil that bore resistance against colonialism and liberation from genocide will again birth revolution. The people remember the dream of 1971—a secular, sovereign, democratic Bangladesh. And that dream cannot be extinguished by foreign plots or domestic cowards.

Dr. Yunus may lie with poise and poise with lies, but truth is not so easily smothered. The nation sees through the charade. The world is beginning to awaken. And justice, though delayed, does not sleep forever.

His legacy, once built on microcredit and promise, now stands drenched in betrayal and blood. Bangladesh bleeds today—not just from within, but from wounds inflicted by the very hands that once promised peace.

(The author, based in Dhaka, was a freedom fighter to establish Bangladesh in 1971, and has served in leadership roles in major private sector enterprises. Views expressed are personal and not necessarily shared by editors of South Asia Monitor. He can be contacted at khan815@gmail.com )