India, Oct. 29 -- Former interim government spokesperson Shafiqul Alam has claimed that student leaders reached out to Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus through a news agency journalist just two days before then prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled Dhaka on August 5, 2024, suggesting that plans to bring Yunus to power may have taken shape before Hasina's sudden departure from Bangladesh.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Alam said Qadaruddin Shishir, who was then the editor of a prominent international news agency's Dhaka fact-check team, acted as a link between the student leaders and Yunus. According to Alam, Shishir made the initial approach to the Nobel Peace Prize laureate on behalf of the students and facilitated the first discussions abou...