- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Bangladesh’s newly elected president Mohammed Shahabuddin on Tuesday (2) urged India to take more effective steps in persuading Myanmar, their common neighbour, to take back people of the Rohingya ethnic group who were forced to take refuge in Bangladesh to evade persecution on the Myanmarese soil.
“The president made the request when Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh Pranay Kumar Verma met him at Bangabhaban,” a presidential palace spokesman told reporters in Dhaka.
Shahabuddin, 73, was sworn in as the 22nd president of Bangladesh on April 24. He succeeded Abdul Hamid whose tenure ended a day before.
Verma paid a courtesy call on Shahabuddin and conveyed to him warm greetings from his Indian counterpart Droupadi Murmu and prime minister Narendra Modi and discussed recent bilateral developments, the Indian mission in Dhaka tweeted.
HC Pranay Verma paid a courtesy call on the new President of Bangladesh H.E. Mohammed Shahabuddin. HC conveyed to him warm greetings from Hon’ble President & Hon’ble Prime Minister of India and discussed recent bilateral developments between 🇮🇳 & 🇧🇩.@MEAIndia #IndiaBangladesh pic.twitter.com/Dk9ATVuwQC
— India in Bangladesh (@ihcdhaka) May 2, 2023
During the meeting, Shahabuddin said that Bangladesh has sheltered the Muslim ethnic minority community for humanitarian reasons, and their prolonged stay is creating problems not only for the South Asian country but for the entire region, in an apparent reference to the escalating security risks including terrorism.
Nearly one million Rohingya Muslims fled a crackdown by Myanmar’s military in 2017 in that country’s Rakhine state and are living in camps in Cox’s Bazar in south-east Bangladesh.
India has always called for the sustainable and speedy return of displaced persons to the Rakhine state of Myanmar and has worked with Bangladesh and Myanmar to resolve this issue.
Shahabuddin said Bangladesh attaches highest importance to its relations with India which is so closely linked by geographical proximity, shared history and sacrifices.
He termed the existing bilateral ties as “strong and unique”.
Shahabuddin, himself a veteran of Bangladesh’s Liberation War, also recalled the training he received during his stay in India in 1971 during the independence struggle. He said the prime ministers of Bangladesh and India recently visited each others’ capitals and their “visits have opened a new chapter in the relationship between the two countries”.
Shahabuddin said Bangladesh gave India access to Chittagong and Mongla seaport for transporting goods from the mainland to its north-eastern states. He expected the move would significantly cut time and cost needed to transport goods to India’s northeastern states and West Bengal and push regional connectivity in Bay of Bengal.
He also noted that Dhaka and Delhi signed the ACMP (Chittagong and Mongla Port) agreement in 2018 and the deal would accelerate the socio-economic development of the two countries along with the increase in trade and commerce.
(With PTI inputs)
