Foreign affairs adviser Md Touhid Hossain on Sunday said that the government could provide a one-time travel pass to Bangladesh Nationalist Party acting chair Tarique Rahman if he wished to return home from the United Kingdom.
Touhid said that there was no restriction from the government side against Tarique’s return from London where he had been staying since 2008.
‘We can issue a one-time travel pass within a day if he wants to come back. On getting the pass, he can fly the following day… .The decision is entirely up to him,’ said the foreign adviser .
The foregn adviser was speaking at a session of a discussion, known as ‘DCAB Talk’, titled ‘Bangladesh’s Foreign Policy: Charting a Relevant Role in a Changing World’ organised by the Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh at the National Press Club in the capital.
Responding to a question, Touhid said that the government was not aware under which status Tarique was now staying in London, explaining that the government generally issued one-way travel passes for its citizens if they did not have a valid passport and it took a day only to complete the process.
‘It would be unusual for any other country to prevent him to come back to his own country if he wants to return,’ he told the ‘DCAB Talk’.
The question of Tarique’s return came again as her mother’s, former prime minister and BNP chair Khaleda Zia’s, condition remained highly critical under treatment.
Meanwhile, Tarique in a facebook post on Saturday said that like any son, he had a deep longing to feel his mother’s affectionate touch in such a difficult time, but the decision to return to Bangladesh was not entirely his to make, nor was it fully in his control.
He was arrested during an anti-corruption crackdown in March 2007 and released on bail in September 2008. Following his release, Tarique left Bangladesh for London on September 11, 2008 for medical treatment and has remained in the UK for the past 17 years.
Asked if Tarique Rahman’s failure to return by the time would halt the schedule for the upcoming elections to be held in February, 2026, Touhid, also a former diplomat, said that he did not think the elections would be affected due to the absence of any individual.
Touching upon Bangladesh’s relations with India in the post-July uprising situation, the foreign adviser expressed optimism that the two neighbours would have working relations and normalise soon based on mutual interests.
About the extradition of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been sentenced to death for atrocities during the uprising and is absconding in India, he said, ‘As she (Hasina) is convicted now, we surely want her extradition to implement the verdict. I don’t think other issues will come in the way of the bilateral relations in general,’ Touhid said in response to a question.
As for the extradition of former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan, who had also been sentenced to death and is believed to be staying in India, he said that the government was not officially informed anything about him.
Asked about the rising incidents of border killing by Indian Border Security Force, he said that Bangladesh-India border was the only border in the world where people were killed although it was not a war-like situation between the two neighbours.
‘What we can do only is to lodge protests and condemn such incidents of border killings,’ he added.
When his attention was drawn to the overseas employments for Bangladeshis, Touhid said that the manpower sector was highly corrupt in Bangladesh. Moreover, some countries were imposing restrictions on the issuance of visas for Bangladeshi citizens due to submissions of fake documents, he added.
DCAB president AKM Moinuddin and general secretary Md Arifuzzaman Mamun spoke at the event.
