Staff Reporter:
Foreign Affairs Adviser Md Touhid Hossain has blamed the provocation of ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for encouraging people to vandalise Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s house at Dhanmondi-32.
“Sheikh Hasina has been relentlessly making instigating remarks and this vandalism is its outcome. It would not have happened if she had refrained from making such remarks,” he said on Thursday.
Thousands of people went on vandalism at Dhanmondi-32, also known as the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum around 8 pm on Wednesday.
At one stage of the vandalism, they also set fire to the Bhaban, venting their anger at exiled Sheikh Hasina, who was scheduled to address the banned student outfit Chhatra League virtually from India around 9 pm.
While addressing a programme in the capital Dhaka this noon, the foreign adviser said the government has officially written to India, requesting it not to allow Sheikh Hasina to make any instigative remarks against Bangladesh, but received no response.
“We have sent another letter to India reiterating the same request as Sheikh Hasina’s remarks are fueling public anger, which is not benefiting the country in any way,” he said.
Claiming that the effort is on to maintain a friendly relationship with India, he said the relationship must be based on a win-win situation.
Bangladesh and India enjoyed best time in their bilateral relationship throughout the premiership of Sheikh Hasina between 2009 and 2024. Several leaders of the ousted Awami League have referred to India as a trusted friend of Bangladesh.
But a massive crack developed in the relationship when Sheikh Hasina was forced to step down from her prime minister post in the face of a student-led mass upsurge on 5 August last year.
After being branded as an autocrat due to her own misdeeds, she fled the country and took shelter in India since 5 August.
She is still engaged in hatching plots to make Bangladesh a dysfunctional country by involving the international communities and the Indian influence.
She has been making anti-state remarks over minority issues and attempting to regain her regime by dishing out falsehoods in the global arena.
As part of her plan, Awami League announced a month-long demonstration, including leaflet distribution, protest rallies and processions, blockades and general strike throughout February demanding the resignation of Prof Muhammad Yunus, chief of the interim government
