Home minister cancels India visit hours after foreign minister

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan also scrapped his scheduled India tour hours after foreign minister AK Abdul Momen cancelled his visit to the biggest neighbor.

Khan was scheduled to travel to the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya tomorrow [Friday] on the invitation by Chief Minister Conrad Kongkal Sangma.

"We do not like to say cancellation. The visit has been postponed. The minister will visit Meghalaya in a convenient time later, may be in January or February 2020," said Sharif Mahmdud Apu, the public relations officer to the home ministry.

Earlier on Thursday, the foreign ministry confirmed that Momen has cancelled New Delhi visit due to his busy schedule on victory month including state programs of the Dec. 16 Victory Day.

Momen was scheduled to fly on Thursday on a three-day visit to attend the sixth edition of the Indian Ocean Dialogue (IOD) and have a discussion on bilateral issues with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar on the sidelines.

The cancellations come a day after Dhaka voiced its concerns over the controversial citizenship bill that was passed by the Indian parliament on Wednesday.

According to the legislation, members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities, who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, till December 31, 2014, facing religious persecution there, will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship.

Hours earlier India's upper house passed the bill, Foreign Minister Momen told the media in Dhaka that it could weaken India’s historic character as a secular nation and rejected the allegations that the minorities are facing religious persecution in Bangladesh.

“India is historically a tolerant country which beliefs in secularism (but) their historic position will be weakened if they deviate from that,” he added.

Brushing aside Indian allegation of torturing minorities in Bangladesh the minister said that all citizens in Bangladesh are being treated equally without showing any difference based on ethnic or any other identity.

Kamruzzaman