Gift To Pak General Or Message To India? Decoding Yunus’s Bangladesh Map Featuring NE | Exclusive

Last Updated:October 27, 2025, 16:11 IST

Yunus gifts Bangladesh map featuring Northeast India to Pak General: “The NE is gate to Southeast Asia for all countries involved in conspiracy against India," say intel sources

Muhammad Yunus's gift to Pakistan's General Sahir Shamshad Mirza.

Bangladesh’s Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus’s recent gift of the artwork — Art of Triumph — to Pakistan’s Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, has a symbolic meaning for Southeast Asia, say intelligence sources.

“The Northeast (NE) is gate to Southeast Asia for all the countries involved in conspiracy against India. The NE region is one of the country’s richest resource zones as this is holding around 1.1 billion tonnes of coal mainly in Assam and Meghalaya," they said.

According to recent surveys, the reserves include 158 million tonnes of crude oil, and 23 billion m³ of natural gas. The NE also has an estimated 65 GW of untapped hydropower potential. The NE has over 1,400 million tonnes of limestone, and emerging deposits of rare earths, graphite, vanadium, lithium, and cobalt. “These resources make the NE a strategic economic and geopolitical hotspot. These natural resources are attracting both domestic and foreign interest," said sources.

India’s NE shares borders with China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan. “The same route connects directly to ASEAN through the Kaladan and Trilateral Highway corridors. The West and China are aware that influence over this region will shape the future of continental trade and energy routes as it will link the Bay of Bengal to the South China Sea," they said.

The area holds large oil, gas, coal and hydropower reserves and forms part of the Brahmaputra-Meghna water system.

Many external factors have long been interested in controlling or accessing these resources through proxy infrastructure projects in Bangladesh and Myanmar. “The major problem is a complex mix of ethnic groups and historic insurgencies which are not allowing even Indian agencies to work properly. Instead of development, one ethnic crisis for a year takes a region management ten years back. All these problems make the region weak to information operations and foreign funding," they said.

“Misrepresenting the area on maps can be a low-cost way to test nationalist reactions or revive separatist sentiment," they said.

The Bay of Bengal is emerging as a maritime choke point between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. Bangladesh’s coast provides deep-water access and the West knows any pressure on India’s Northeast is going to create a strategic problem for Indian naval reach. “Portraying the NE as part of another country through maps, statements or academic art is a soft act of war. Yunus wants to convey through Pakistan that India’s borders are negotiable and any external forces can be roped in to negotiate," sources said.

Manoj Gupta

Group Editor, Investigations & Security Affairs, Network18

Group Editor, Investigations & Security Affairs, Network18

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