"It was around 10.30 am this morning, and I was sitting down for breakfast at my home in Dhaka's Uttara. Suddenly, stones came flying through the windows. A massive mob gathered outside my four-storey building. They shattered the window panes and tried to force themselves into the building," Bangladeshi politician Ghulam Muhammed Quader, the chairman of the Jatiya Party, told India Today Digital.

A former ally of ousted Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina, Quader said the mob raised slogans calling him an "Indian agent". He alleged that "supporters of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami and the anti-India Inqilab Moncho were involved in the attack".The attack came just days after Quader acknowledged that he remained in contact with Sheikh Hasina, who has been in exile in India since August 2024, and claimed that she wanted to return to Bangladesh.

It was "most probably" his remarks regarding Hasina that triggered the attack, Quader told India Today Digital. Quader, 78, said there were around 100 protesters. The mob pelted stones and bricks at the house, damaging windows and other parts of the property. They also demanded Quader's arrest.

While Quader's Jatiya Party was an ally of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League during much of her rule between 2009 and 2024, he served as Leader of the Opposition in Bangladesh's Parliament, Jatiya Sangsad, during her final term before her ouster in August 2024.

After Hasina's ouster, while several Awami League leaders and her associates fled Bangladesh, Quader was among the leaders who stayed back and continued criticising the country's political direction — first under Muhammad Yunus's interim administration and now under PM Tarique Rahman's BNP-led government.

Quader has questioned restrictions on political activity, the exclusion of parties from elections and what he described as the erosion of democratic freedom in Bangladesh.

Speaking to India Today Digital, Quader claimed that the BNP government was increasingly panicked by public dissatisfaction, that law and order had deteriorated and that political freedom had become almost non-existent. He said the BNP feared the coming together of Hasina's Awami League and his Jatiya Party. STONES SHATTER WINDOWS AS MOB TARGETS QUADER'S DHAKA HOMEThe attack took place on Monday morning in northern Dhaka's Uttara. According to Quader's account to India Today Digital, he was having breakfast at his four-storey residence when stones struck the windows, shattering the glass. His wife and other family members were also inside the house when the attack took place.

The mob raised slogans accusing Quader of being an "Indian agent." In a video shared by Quader, protesters could be seen holding a banner that read, "Betraying the blood of the martyrs of July by maintaining contact with fascist murderer Sheikh Hasina.

GM Quader must be arrested. There must be no place for fascism in this Bangladesh. — Ordinary people are opposed to autocracy." The reference to "July" was to the anti-Hasina protests in Bangladesh in July-August 2024, which began as a student-led movement against government job quotas, were reportedly hijacked by Islamist groups, and eventually forced Sheikh Hasina out of power.

Quader confirmed to India Today Digital that he had spoken to Sheikh Hasina, saying there was nothing wrong with doing so on humanitarian grounds, especially since their families shared longstanding personal ties. QUADER ALLEGED ROLE OF ISLAMISTS IN ANTI-HASINA PROTESTS, KILLING OF COPSIn a November 2025 piece for India Today Digital, Quader alleged that Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, had played a covert role in the July-August 2024 protests that toppled Hasina's government. He questioned the involvement of Islamist groups in the violence, and demanded an investigation into the deaths of protesters and police personnel.

He had also warned that elections excluded major political parties. Ahead of the February 2026 parliamentary elections, Quader's Jatiya Party faced demands for its exclusion over its past association with Hasina's Awami League, while its leaders complained of intimidation, discrimination and the absence of a level playing field, reported Jagonews24. Although Quader contested the Rangpur-3 seat and urged voters to reject the Yunus-propelled July Referendum, his party failed to win a single parliamentary seat.

It secured just 0.89% of the vote. Quader finished third in his constituency, Dhaka-Tribune reported. This is not the first time that miscreants have targeted Quader. Last year in May, a mob struck his residence in Rangpur city late at night.

According to a report in the Dhaka-based outlet, The Daily Star, attackers smashed windows and set fire to a motorcycle parked on the premises. Jatiya Party Co-chairman and former Rangpur City Corporation mayor Mustafizur Rahman had then alleged that members of the National Citizen Party (NCP) and Students Against Discrimination (SAD) were behind the attack.

The Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, were involved in the anti-Sheikh Hasina protests.ATTACK COMES DAYS AFTER QUADER'S HASINA REMARKSThe attack came days after Quader acknowledged that he remained in contact with Sheikh Hasina, who has been living in India since her ouster in August 2024. In a YouTube podcast reported by Dhaka-based outlet NewAgeBD on October 10, Quader said, "I speak to Sheikh Hasina. We talk occasionally. She is talking to everyone.""

Sheikh Hasina says she wants to return.

But they [the Bangladesh government] are not allowing her to come back. They are afraid of her popularity," he claimed in the podcast. Quader's personal assistant, Layes Ahmed, confirmed the authenticity of the podcast clip to NewAgeBD. Speaking to India Today Digital, Quader said that police had prevented his party from protesting against rising fuel prices, holding rallies and even public meetings.

Quader cited several such instances, including one involving an event scheduled for October 23. "When we sought permission for a protest procession against the fuel price hike, the police told us that we could leave our office," he said. Windows of residential buildings glow with candle torches during a power outage in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The blackout has affected even the capital's upscale neighbourhoods.BNP TARGETING ME FOR CRITICISING TARIQUE RAHMAN GOVT: QUADERWhen asked why he believed he was being targeted, Quader pointed to his "outspokenness on the political and economic situation in Bangladesh." He said he had been "speaking out against rising inflation, the worsening energy crisis, deteriorating law and order, restrictions on political activities and the shrinking space for dissent."

India Today Digital on September 17 reported that Bangladesh is facing its worst energy crisis in almost 20 years. Districts are grappling with hours-long blackouts, crucial industries are struggling, and nurses at a hospital have to use torches to tend to patients.

Quader alleged that "the political atmosphere has become increasingly hostile to parties and leaders who question those in power."

He claimed that "public dissatisfaction was growing amid economic hardship. Bangladesh's inflation rose to 8.34% in September from 8.26% in August, with food inflation climbing to 7.22%, prompting Bangladesh Bank to maintain its key policy rate at 9.5% amid persistent price pressures, weak economic growth and mounting banking-sector stress.

In an Opinion piece for India Today Digital last week, Dhaka-based journalist Swadesh Roy described Bangladesh's worsening economic distress through the story of a vegetable vendor in Dhaka's New Eskaton Road, who said he had cut his stock of pointed gourds from four kilograms to two because rising prices had eaten into his working capital.

Roy wrote that low-wage workers were forced to survive on one meal or substitute bananas, biscuits and tea for proper meals. Warning of what he called a "silent famine", he argued that repeated energy-price increases, restrictions on machinery imports and mounting unemployment were deepening the crisis in Bangladesh. Quader, who has previously served as minister of commerce and civil aviation, said, "This [Tarique Rahman] government is running the country by borrowing money from banks." Asked whether his recent podcast remarks about being in contact with former PM Sheikh Hasina could have been the immediate trigger for Monday's attack, Quader said, "Most probably." Quader claimed that if Sheikh Hasina's Awami League and his Jatiya Party joined forces, "the BNP-led government would find it difficult to contain their combined strength".- Ends