Pakistan Bangladesh: Amid India-Bangladesh tensions, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar announced that he will visit Bangladesh in February. This will be the first visit of a Pakistani minister to Bangladesh since 2012. Dar made this announcement a few weeks after the meeting between Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Bangladesh’s interim government chief advisor Muhammad Yunus on the sidelines of the D-8 summit in Cairo last month.
Media reports said that Dar would be the first foreign minister of Pakistan to visit Dhaka in more than a decade. Earlier, Hina Rabbani Khar was the last foreign minister of Pakistan to visit Dhaka in 2012. Dar said in Islamabad on Thursday that he would leave for Dhaka on or after February 5.
Demand for extradition of Sheikh Hasina
Ever since Yunus government came to power in Bangladesh, there has been continuous rhetoric against India. Recently, the interim government has sent a diplomatic note to the Government of India, demanding the extradition of the country’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Hasina, daughter of Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, had to leave her country and take refuge in India on 5 August.
Tauheed Hussain, advisor on foreign affairs to the interim government, had said, “We have informed India and requested the return of Sheikh Hasina for judicial purposes. This has been communicated through a note verbale (diplomatic note). “
Earlier in the day, the country’s advisor on home affairs Lieutenant General (retd) Mohammad Jahangir Alam Choudhary said his ministry has written a letter to Hussain’s office for the return of the ousted prime minister from India.
“We have sent a letter to the Ministry of External Affairs regarding his extradition. The process is still going on. He has an extradition agreement with us,” Choudhary was quoted as saying by the country’s leading Bengali daily Pratham Aalo.
Hindu community and their religious places were targeted
After the fall of Sheikh Hasina, minorities in Bangladesh, especially the Hindu community and their religious places, started being targeted. The interim government established under the leadership of Mohammad Yunus has been accused of not being able to provide security to the minorities.
India has consistently raised the issue of threats and targeted attacks against Hindus and other minorities strongly with the Bangladesh government.
Recently, during his visit to Bangladesh, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri shared New Delhi’s concerns with the neighboring country regarding extremist rhetoric and incidents of violence against minorities in Bangladesh.
Sheikh Hasina and her party Awami League have been strongly condemning the atrocities on minorities.
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