Is it possible, one journalist ventured, that the security forces are engaged in abuses as they crack down on suspected drug dealers and drug lords in the country? This was a clear allusion to the campaign of extrajudicial executions now being carried out by the police and the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

What came next reminded one of Rodrigo Duterte — the president of the Philippines and the chief patron of the “drug war” there. Like Duterte, Hasina oozed callous confidence.