Bangladesh summons Indian envoy amid rising tensions between nations

India and Bangladesh have a wide-ranging and multifaceted relationship that cannot be reduced to just one issue, Verma said after the meeting.

New Delhi: A day after the premises of the Assistant High Commission of Bangladesh in Agartala in northeastern India were breached and vandalised by a mob of protesters, the interim government of the neighbouring country summoned New Delhi’s envoy to Dhaka, Pranay Kumar Verma, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and lodged a strong protest.

Dhaka also decided that its mission in Agartala would suspend issuing visas to the citizens of India for travel to Bangladesh.

India and Bangladesh have a wide-ranging and multifaceted relationship that cannot be reduced to just one issue, Verma said after meeting the acting foreign secretary of the neighbouring country, Riaz Hamiddullah, in Dhaka on Tuesday. “We want to build on the dependencies (between India and Bangladesh) for mutual benefit.”

The activists of the Hindu Sangharsh Samiti in Agartala on Monday breached the security perimeter of the Assistant High Commission of Bangladesh in the capital of Tripura, a northeastern state of India. They allegedly vandalised the mission while protesting against the atrocities on the Hindus in Bangladesh since the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5, particularly the recent arrest of monk Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, who was charged with sedition and denied bail by a court in Chittagong.

New Delhi already expressed deep regret for the incident in Agartala.

In the wake of the incident, seven people were arrested, while three police officers were suspended by the state government of Tripura.

The Ministry of External Affairs moved to enhance security for the High Commission of Bangladesh in New Delhi and its consular missions in other parts of the city.  

Dhaka, however, invoked the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 to lodge a protest in New Delhi over what it called a ‘heinous attack’ on the.  Assistant High Commission of Bangladesh in Agartala. The interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, however, summoned Verma amid escalation of tensions between the neighbouring nations. 

India will keep ensuring that mutual cooperation benefits the two peoples, the number of positive developments that have taken place in the bilateral relationship with Bangladesh in the last few months, “whether it is trade, it is power transmission, supply of essential commodities, we have maintained lot of positive momentum in the relationship,” Verma told journalists after meeting Hamiddullah.

Chinmoy Krishna Das emerged as one of the frontline leaders of the agitation by the Hindus of Bangladesh against atrocities on the minority community over the past few months since the collapse of the erstwhile Awami League government led by Sheikh Hasina on August 5 this year.