In US for UNGA, Yunus blames India for everything he can: Hasina to Islamic radicals in Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s Interim Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus used his visit to the United States to slam India’s backing of the country’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. On Wednesday, Yunus said that Dhaka’s ties with New Delhi were strained because India did not like the 2024 uprising that ultimately toppled the Hasina government.

“They (India) are hosting Hasina, who created all these problems and killed young people,” Yunus said during his visit to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. He went on to allege that “lots of fake news is emanating from the other side (India)”.

It is pertient to note that the Bangladeshi interim government has accused Hasina of committing “crimes against humanity” to quell the uprising against her government during July-Aug last year. It even requested India to extradite her. However, New Delhi has not shared any response on the matter.

Yunus pushes the same rhetoric

In a separate meeting with Finnish President Alexander Stubb on the sidelines of the event, Yunus said that the trials of “ Hasina and her cronies are a top priority of his government”. Yunus went on to describe reports of rising Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh as ‘fake news’.

Yunus also used the platform to push for the revival of Saarc. The interim chief laid emphasis on the need to ensure regional cooperation on the economic front.

However, he also emphasised that there are “problems with India right now because they did not like what the students have done in Bangladesh. And that creates a lot of tension between the two nations,” he said at a conversation hosted by Asia Society and Asia Society Policy Institute.

The Nobel laureate also blamed India for the fading away of Saarc since 2014. “We wanted to bring this together so that young people can get in touch with each other – all regions, not just one country, all the countries – they can visit each other, make friends with each other, study in universities, colleges, wherever they are, and they can do business in each other’s countries. That was the whole idea,” Yunus said.

“Our history gives us the opportunity to make that happen, but somehow it didn’t fit into the politics of one country, so we had to stop that. So, we feel very sorry for that. We want to make sure that we open it up and bring people together,” he added. India is yet to respond to Yunus’s latest attention.