2024-09-05 23:16:30
New Delhi: Bangladesh interim government chief Muhammad Yunus on Thursday said former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s political statements to India are unfriendly. He said Hasina’s statements to India have caused uneasiness in Bangladesh. He said the relations between the two countries are not good at the moment. Yunus said from his official residence in Dhaka that if India wants to keep her with it until Bangladesh (government) wants her back, the condition would be that she remains silent. On August 13, Hasina had issued a statement demanding that those involved in killings and vandalism during anti-government protests be identified and punished.‘They should keep quiet, they are taking refuge in India’
Yunus said, “We have told her very strictly that she should keep quiet… She has been given asylum there and she is preaching from there. It is not like she has gone there in a normal way. She has fled from there after the public’s revolt and anger.” He said that she is speaking and giving instructions while sitting in India. Nobody likes this… This is not good for us or India.
‘Come back to Bangladesh, the case will be filed here’
Yunus also stressed that Hasina should be brought back to Bangladesh and tried publicly. Yunus stressed that Bangladesh values strong bilateral relations with India, but New Delhi should move beyond the ideology that labels every other political party except the Awami League as Islamist. He said India and Bangladesh need to work together to improve their relations, which are no longer good.
A few weeks ago I had a phone conversation with PM Modi
Yunus’ statement comes weeks after a phone conversation between him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This was the first high-level contact between the two countries after the fall of the Hasina government. After their conversation, the Ministry of External Affairs indicated in a statement that the two leaders discussed ways to advance bilateral relations in line with respective national priorities.
Following the anti-government protests that reached a peak on August 5, Hasina resigned as prime minister and moved to India. Her presence in India for nearly four weeks has fuelled speculation in Bangladesh, and with multiple criminal cases filed against the former prime minister back home, it is likely that Bangladesh may soon press for her extradition.