DHAKA: Thousands of members of three youth and student bodies belonging to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party marched toward the Indian High Commission in the country’s capital on Sunday to denounce attacks on a diplomatic mission and alleged desecration of Bangladeshi flags in India.
The protests came a day before India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, is due to visit Dhaka amid growing tension between the two neighbors in recent months.
It will be the first high-profile diplomatic visit by an Indian official since the fall of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is in exile in India, in August.
Bangladesh, which is predominantly Muslim, has accused the majority Hindus in India of attacking the Assistant High Commissioner’s office at Agartala in the Indian state of Tripura and desecrating Bangladeshi flags in Kolkata in West Bengal state.
India said it regretted the attacks and pledged to take action against those responsible. Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also summoned the Indian High Commissioner and protested formally.
On Sunday, thousands of supporters of the BNP, which is headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, marched toward the Indian High Commission, but police stopped them by setting up barbed wire fences. They later allowed a team of six leaders of the three associate bodies of the party to hand in a letter to the High Commission.
The BNP last ruled Bangladesh in 2001-2006 in partnership with the Jamaat-e-Islami party. In the absence of Hasina, Zia’s party is the main force and it is expected to win the next election if it happens sometime soon.
Hasina, whose party is seen as more secular than the BNP, is highly regarded by India as a trusted friend. Most Hindus in Bangladesh are considered to be supporters of Hasina’s Awami League party.
The BNP supporters chanted slogans such as “Delhi or Dhaka? Dhaka, Dhaka!” and “Agents of India, be careful, be careful!” They also carried banners reading “We have friends overseas, but not masters.”
The protesters said India has been trying to instigate communal riots in Bangladesh to achieve political mileage since the ouster of Hasina, who fled to India following a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. Hasina’s party is struggling to get back on the streets while Hasina herself is facing arrest warrants on charges of crimes against humanity involving the deaths of hundreds of protesters during the uprising in July and August.
Over the past few weeks, some smaller Islamist groups and the BNP have protested against India over the attacks in Tripura and urged the interim government, led by Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, to officially raise concerns.
The situation started becoming tense after authorities in Bangladesh last month arrested a prominent Bangladeshi Hindu leader and jailed him, pending further legal procedures.
India had earlier officially raised concern over allegations of attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh after the fall of Hasina. Yunus and his close aides said the reports were exaggerated.
Bangladesh has been navigating crucial challenges since August amid mob violence, rising commodity prices, street protests and an unstable economy. The presence of Islamist groups has been visible more than ever in recent months.
The police are demoralized because many of their colleagues were killed in the protests and law and order remains a major concern, with rights groups also calling for ensuring press freedom. About 700 inmates including many criminals and radical Islamists still remain at large after jailbreaks during the political chaos in August.
Yunus has been urging people to stay calm, promising improvement.
Supporters of Bangladesh Nationalist Party march in protest at attacks in India
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Supporters of Bangladesh Nationalist Party march in protest at attacks in India
- Bangladesh has accused Hindus of attacking its assistant high commissioner’s office in Agartala, desecrating Bangladeshi flags in Kolkata
- The protests came a day before India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, is due to visit Dhaka amid growing tension between the two neighbors
UK’s Starmer calls Trump’s remarks on allies in Afghanistan ‘frankly appalling’
- Britain lost 457 service personnel killed in Afghanistan, its deadliest overseas war since the 1950s
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called US President Donald Trump’s comments about European troops staying off the front lines in Afghanistan insulting and appalling, joining a chorus of criticism from other European officials and veterans.
“I consider President Trump’s remarks to be insulting and frankly appalling, and I’m not surprised they’ve caused such hurt for the loved ones of those who were killed or injured,” Starmer told reporters.
When asked whether he would demand an apology from the US leader, Starmer said: “If I had misspoken in that way or said those words, I would certainly apologize.”
Britain lost 457 service personnel killed in Afghanistan, its deadliest overseas war since the 1950s. For several of the war’s most intense years it led the allied campaign in Helmand, Afghanistan’s biggest and most violent province, while also fighting as the main US battlefield ally in Iraq.
Starmer’s remarks were notably strong coming from a leader who has tended to avoid direct criticism of Trump in public.
Trump told Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” on Thursday the United States had “never needed” the transatlantic alliance and accused allies of staying “a little off the front lines” in Afghanistan.
His remarks added to already strained relations with European allies after he used the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos to again signal his interest in acquiring Greenland.
Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel condemned Trump’s remarks on Afghanistan, calling them untrue and disrespectful.
Britain’s Prince Harry, who served in Afghanistan, also weighed in. “Those sacrifices deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect,” he said in a statement.
’WE PAID IN BLOOD FOR THIS ALLIANCE’
“We expect an apology for this statement,” Roman Polko, a retired Polish general and former special forces commander who also served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told Reuters in an interview.
Trump has “crossed a red line,” he added. “We paid with blood for this alliance. We truly sacrificed our own lives.”
Britain’s veterans minister, Alistair Carns, whose own military service included five tours including alongside American troops in Afghanistan, called Trump’s claims “utterly ridiculous.”
“We shed blood, sweat and tears together. Not everybody came home,” he said in a video posted on X.
Richard Moore, the former head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence service, said he, like many MI6 officers, had operated in dangerous environments with “brave and highly esteemed” CIA counterparts and had been proud to do so with Britain’s closest ally.
Under NATO’s founding treaty, members are bound by a collective-defense clause, Article 5, which treats an attack on one member as an attack on all.
It has been invoked only once — after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, when allies pledged to support the United States. For most of the war in Afghanistan, the US-led force there was under NATO command.
POLISH SACRIFICE ‘MUST NOT BE DIMINISHED’
Some politicians noted that Trump had avoided the draft for the Vietnam War, citing bone spurs in his feet.
“Trump avoided military service 5 times,” Ed Davey, leader of Britain’s centrist Liberal Democrats, wrote on X. “How dare he question their sacrifice.”
Poland’s sacrifice “will never be forgotten and must not be diminished,” Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
Trump’s comments were “ignorant,” said Rasmus Jarlov, an opposition Conservative Party member of Denmark’s parliament. In addition to the British deaths, more than 150 Canadians were killed in Afghanistan, along with 90 French service personnel and scores from Germany, Italy and other countries. Denmark — now under heavy pressure from Trump to transfer its semi-autonomous region of Greenland to the US — lost 44 troops, one of NATO’s highest per-capita death rates.
The United States lost about 2,460 troops in Afghanistan, according to the US Department of Defense, a figure on par per capita with those of Britain and Denmark. (Reporting by Sam Tabahriti and Elizabeth Evans in London, Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen and Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Malgorzata Wojtunik in Gdansk, additional reporting by Andrew MacAskill, Muvija M and James Davey in London and Bart Meijer in Amsterdam; Writing by Sam Tabahriti; editing by Gareth Jones, Andrew Heavens, Ros Russell and Diane Craft)
