India has expressed its intent to engage with Bangladesh’s new government led by Tarique Rahman and to take forward bilateral relations ‘positively’.
‘If the new government in Bangladesh wishes to put forward its priorities, we will sit with them...We are ready to engage positively with Bangladesh,’ Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri said in an interaction with a visiting media delegation from Bangladesh at the external affairs ministry in New Delhi on Monday.
He made the statement at a time when Dhaka was waiting for New Delhi’s response on its request for the extradition of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India for shelter amid the student-led mass uprising on August 5, 2024.
Vikram said that they had tried to engage with the Professor Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, which took office on August 8, 2024 and ended its tenure on March 17, 2026.
Terming the one-and-a-half-year term of the Bangladesh interim government testing time for them, he claimed that they could not engage with the government despite their efforts before the new government was installed through the February 12 general polls in Bangladesh.
Asked about New Delhi’s position about Dhaka’s request for return of Hasina, who is facing death sentence for atrocities committed during the July uprising, the foreign secretary said that they wanted to engage ‘positively’ with Bangladesh to move forward in a ‘constructive way’.
‘We are in favour of relation that is beneficial for both the people of Bangladesh and India,’ he added.
‘From the very beginning, we have said that we are ready to work with the elected government,’ said Vikram, a career diplomat.
Regarding the resumption of full-fledged visa issuance, he said that they had increased the number of medical visas and were trying to restore normalcy in the near future.
Responding to a question about the renewal of the 30-year Ganges Treaty expiring in December, he said that the Joint Rivers Commission was working on it.
Asked about the long-pending Teesta water treaty, which India backtracked on signing at the eleventh hour in 2011 reportedly in the face of opposition from West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, whose party Trinamool Congress recently lost the Bidhansabha polls, the secretary said that they would continue bilateral talks in this regard.
About Indian media reports that Indian authorities were considering the release of venomous snakes and crocodiles along border with Bangladesh to check intrusion, he dismissed such a decision, claiming that it was a fake news.
He brushed aside allegations that India had backed the Awami League in returning to power through rigged elections in the past.
He said that they wanted to build a ‘productive’ and ‘pragmatic’ relationship with Bangladesh.
Vikram said that they would continue energy cooperation with Bangladesh although they were also facing constraints due the ongoing conflict across the Gulf states following the United States’ war on Iran.
