Bangladesh High Commissioner summoned in Delhi on pretext of tea invitation

India’s Ministry of External Affairs summoned Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to Delhi, M Riaz Hamidullah, by extending a tea invitation.

The meeting took place on Tuesday afternoon.

This marked the fourth instance in the past 10 days in which the two countries have summoned each other’s diplomats to convey protests and express concerns over various issues.

Tensions between Bangladesh and India continued today, Tuesday for the fourth consecutive day. At the start of the day, India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Pranay Verma, was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dhaka. During the meeting, Bangladesh conveyed its deep concern to the Indian government over the protests and threats outside the Bangladesh High Commission and the High Commissioner’s residence in New Delhi on 20 December, as well as the vandalism carried out by members of several Hindutva organisations at the Bangladesh visa centre in Siliguri on 22 December.

In response, India’s Ministry of External Affairs summoned Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to India, M Riaz Hamidullah, in Delhi in the afternoon. According to diplomatic sources, Joint Secretary B. Shyam of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs told the Bangladeshi High Commissioner during the meeting that Bangladesh had recently been reacting unreasonably and irrelevantly to several issues. Rejecting the allegation, the Bangladeshi High Commissioner said that Bangladesh was presenting its positions on various issues based on ground realities.

Since the mass uprising in July last year that led to the fall of the Awami League government, relations between Bangladesh and India have been marked by tensions. However, in these 16 months, this is the first time that on the same day, a diplomat from one country was summoned in the morning, followed by a diplomat from the other country being summoned in the afternoon.