What We’re Following

Qatar sentences eight Indians to death. On Oct. 26, an Indian External Affairs Ministry statement revealed that a court in Qatar had sentenced to death eight Indian nationals. The men, who were reportedly jailed last year, were all former members of the Indian Navy who had gone to Qatar to train its naval personnel. Qatar’s government has not discussed the case publicly, though a Financial Times report claims the men were convicted of spying for Israel.



This verdict poses a fresh diplomatic challenge for India. It marks the second time in just over six weeks—following an ongoing spat with Canada—that India has experienced a crisis with a top partner. But unlike New Delhi’s relationship with Ottawa, long hampered by tensions over the issue of Sikh separatism, its partnership with Doha is usually stable and largely problem-free.

India relies heavily on Qatar for fuel imports, especially liquefied natural gas, and the 800,000 Indians based in Qatar are a key source of remittances. Additionally, Qatar is an important player in the latest Israel-Hamas war. The country, which is home to top Hamas leaders, is mediating talks between Israel and Hamas on hostages and aid. India has taken an uncharacteristically strong pro-Israel stance during the war—a position that has concerned some of its top Arab partners.

In contrast to its sharp public rhetoric against Canada, India will tread carefully while navigating the crisis given these geopolitical sensitivities. Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar met with the convicted men’s families in recent days, and New Delhi has given repeated public assurances that it is working to assist and even release them. Otherwise, India has said little publicly.

New Delhi is working with Qatari officials and exploring its options to provide legal relief for the men. Legal experts say it won’t be easy to get their sentences commuted given the seriousness of espionage charges. One diplomatic option could be to turn to a 2015 India-Qatar prisoner exchange deal, but this would first require Doha to reduce the sentences to life in prison.



Political violence increases in Bangladesh. On Saturday, Dhaka’s streets filled with one of Bangladesh’s largest opposition protests in months. Thousands of members of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) called on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and turn power over to a caretaker administration until elections scheduled for January. The protests turned violent, with demonstrators throwing stones at police and law enforcement firing tear gas. Hundreds of BNP members and supporters, including several top leaders, have since been arrested.

The ruling Awami League (AL) party and the opposition offer diametrically opposed accounts: The AL contends the BNP provoked the violence, while the BNP insists it was actually the police. Some government critics in private discussions with me in recent days accused AL goons of staging the violence to give the government a pretext to crack down harder on the BNP.

There was additional violence on Tuesday, with two people killed and dozens wounded in clashes between police and the opposition. Protests are expected to continue. The government and opposition now appear to be on a collision course: The BNP is doubling down on its core demand that Hasina make way for a caretaker, and Dhaka has continuously refused. The more the opposition escalates, the more defiant the government will likely become. Neither side will want to give an inch. As political polarization worsens, expect the months before elections to feature more political instability and rising risks of violence.

Update: The U.S. government has rejected an allegation made in an Indian media report, referenced in South Asia Brief last week, that it gave an ultimatum to Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign by Nov. 3.

Jehovah’s Witness prayer session attacked in India. Multiple blasts hit a Jehovah’s Witness prayer session on Sunday in the southern Indian state of Kerala, leaving three people dead and more than 50 injured. On Tuesday, authorities arrested a man named Dominic Martin as a suspect. Martin confessed on Facebook to planning the attack, claiming he was a former Jehovah’s Witness who is angry with the group’s teachings, but local officials from the group said he was not a registered member.

Though Kerala has experienced religious violence in the past, especially anti-Christian attacks, the state has historically been more religiously tolerant than many other parts of India.

Reactions to the tragedy show the dangers of disinformation on social media. Some Indians posted messages on X that appeared to link Islamist militancy to the attack by pointing out that a large pro-Palestinian protest had recently taken place in Kerala. The posters may have been inspired by Indian Deputy IT Minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar, who accused Kerala’s government—controlled by a rival party—on social media of appeasing radical groups such as Hamas, using the hashtags #KochiTerrorAttacks and #HamasTerrorists.

FP’s Most Read This Week

Under the Radar

In recent years, Pakistan has seen a resurgence of anti-state terrorism, most of it perpetrated against police and soldiers by the TTP. However, recent clashes in the Kurram district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province are a sobering reminder of an additional threat posed by sectarian militancy. Eight days of fighting began last week after a controversial video surfaced that reportedly featured “sectarian content.” The violence, which featured what one Pakistani official called “heavy and sophisticated weapons,” may have resulted in as many as 40 deaths.

On Tuesday, local officials and elders reportedly brokered a cease-fire, but the region remains restive. Kurram has a legacy of sectarian extremism, especially anti-Shiite violence. In May, seven Shiite schoolteachers were killed in an attack; in July, fighting provoked by land disputes resulted in at least 11 deaths. An editorial in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn recently argued that the failure to proactively tackle these tensions dooms the district to more violence. Reactive approaches, according to the editorial, keep “the lid on underlying tensions for a brief period, then disputes explode at the slightest provocation.”

Regional Voices

A Dhaka Tribune editorial laments Bangladesh’s failure to leverage its large youth population. The country’s youth is “one of [its] biggest advantages … an advantage that we continuously fail to grasp,” the publication writes. “But that prospect becomes even worse when we realize that, even when armed with a degree, our youth find it harder and harder to find employment.”

Author Nilakantan RS argues in the Print that debates about whether India will become the next superpower must be mindful of the country’s serious human development challenges: With an [infant mortality rate] that’s about as good or bad as Sub-Saharan Africa when no one thinks that part of the world is going to be a superpower, what gives India that confidence?

Activist Shreen Abdul Saroor writes in Daily FT about the plight of the 75,000 to 100,000 Muslims expelled from Sri Lanka’s Northern Province in 1990 who are unable to return today: “In any forthcoming elections the northern Muslims have to think seriously and use their franchise to choose a new leadership that could take forward their issues genuinely as a right-based issue and demand for accountability for eviction.”