General Secretary of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Mirza Islam Alamgir, has expressed his party's desire to strengthen ties with India and emphasized that India is considered a neighbour and friend, but also called for a resolution of several key issues.
While speaking to news agency ANI, Mr Alamgir said that the BNP wants a friendly relationship with India, and is seeking solutions to these issues to move forward.
"It will be definitely strengthened further because we as a political party, always consider India to be our neighbour and friend. But we also invite India to come to a solution on certain issues," said Mr Alamgir
"We want a good friendly relationship with India," he added.
Further, Mr Alamgir has denied reports of communal atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh.
Mr Alamgir claimed that the issues are "totally political" and not communal or religious. He invited Indian media to visit Dhaka to assess the situation themselves.
"There is a sort of misunderstanding and very unfortunate propaganda being made by different media nationally and globally and especially from your country. The media is peddling that communal atrocities are going on in Bangladesh which is not true at all. This is not communal, not religious, this is totally political to some extent. I invite you, the media of India to come to Dhaka and see themselves, what has happened in Bangladesh," said Mr Alamgir while referring to the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh.
Further, Mr Alamgir accused the government of perpetuating a "political conspiracy" against the interim government and the people.
"Some people say that the people of Bangladesh are creating some communal problems. No not at all. They are safe in the hands of the Bangladeshi government, Bangladeshi people, they're always safe. This is again a political conspiracy going on against the interim government and the people because the people do not want anymore the government of Sheikh Hasina who has killed so many people in these few years and destroyed the constitution. They have violated human rights and corruption was rampant and unprecedented," the General Secretary of BNP said to ANI.
Mr Alamgir also spoke about the situation when Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled from the country and stated that she fled to Delhi, India, under "special circumstances" following a student and citizen uprising.
"Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has resigned and fled from the country abandoning her party and the people. She was supposed to be with the people always but she left the country. As far as our knowledge goes, she has landed in Delhi. She had to leave under special circumstances," he said.
"There was a student and citizen uprising. It was a revolution and before that, almost 1,000 students were killed by Sheikh Hasina's police and almost 12,000 people were arrested... Millions of people were on the streets and they were heading towards the official residence of the Prime Minister and then she left the country with her helicopter," he added.
Bangladesh is experiencing a volatile political situation, with Sheikh Hasina resigning from the post of Prime Minister on August 5 amid mounting protests. The protests, led mainly by students demanding an end to a quota system for government jobs, evolved into anti-government demonstrations.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
