Bangladesh will be with India

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday said Bangladesh would stay beside India if the neighbouring country came under attack as a result of ongoing tension with Pakistan.

"We defeated Pakistan in 1971. We don't want to think about them. Besides, we have no common border with Pakistan. The country is situated 1,200 miles away, so we don't need to bother about that country," he said.

Kamal came up with the views in response to a query about Bangladesh's stance on the current tensed situation between India and Pakistan following the recent Uri attack and India's retaliatory surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the LoC.

Pakistan and India have meanwhile agreed to reduce tension after their national security advisors spoke over phone, top Pakistani official Sartaj Aziz said.

The home boss was addressing a views-exchange programme at the Secretariat organised by Bangladesh Secretariat Reporters Forum.

Responding to another question, he said the law enforcers did not pray for fresh remand for Tahmid Hasib Khan, one of the Gulshan café attack survivors, as they did not get enough information in previous remands.

“We will be able to question him further if we need to,” Kamal added.

A court on Sunday granted bail to Tahmid, who was released the same night.

It had earlier been widely reported that Tahmid, a Canadian university student, and Hasnat Karim, a former private university teacher in Bangladesh, were taken in by detectives for interrogation immediately after the 11-hour bloody siege ended on July 2.

On hacking of a Sylhet college student, the home minister firmly stated that the attacker, who stabbed Sylhet Government Mahila College student Khadija Akter Nargis yesterday, would be brought to justice, irrespective of his political association.

On Monday evening, Khadija, 23, daughter of Masuk Miah, a resident of Hausa village in Sadar upazila, was stopped on her way home from college allegedly by Badrul Alam, 30, assistant secretary of BCL unit at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST).

Kamal said his ministry has approved in principle a proposal to form an air wing for police. “To make the police self-sufficient and to speed up their operation, a decision over forming an air wing has been taken in principle.

“The finance ministry would decide about the number of helicopters to be purchased. We will proceed gradually,” he added. Replying to another query, he said police personnel would be trained on how to operate helicopters.

On a question about shooting unarmed Bangladeshi nationals on the border, the minister said the government filed protests with the Indian authorities every time a Bangladeshi citizen was killed by Border Security Force (BSF).

He added both the countries were trying to reduce border killings.