‘At short notice, Sheikh Hasina sought approval to come to India’: Jaishankar in Rajya Sabha

Jaishankar also said that the government is monitoring the situation with respect to the minorities in the neighbouring country

Updated on: Aug 6, 2024, 17:40:42 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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External affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Tuesday said that India is in regular touch with the authorities in Bangladesh, which is in the grip of a political crisis after its prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country.

In his address to the Rajya Sabha, the minister said," In the last 24 hours, we have also been in regular touch with the authorities in Dhaka. This is the situation as of now. I seek the understanding and support of the House in regard to sensitive issues regarding an important neighbour on which there has always been a strong national consensus."

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External affairs minister S Jaishankar speaks in Rajya Sabha

Jaishankar also said that the government is monitoring the situation with respect to the minorities in the neighbouring country. According to local media reports, Hindu temples have been attacked and vandalised in the violence following Hasina's exit.

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“ There are reports of initiatives by various groups and organizations to ensure their protection and well-being. We welcome that, but will naturally remain deeply concerned till law and order is visibly restored. Our border guarding forces have also been instructed to be exceptionally alert in view of this complex situation,” he said in his statement.

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On developments in Dhaka on Tuesday that led to Sheikh Hasina leaving the country and arriving in India, the minister said,"On 5th August, demonstrators converged in Dhaka despite the curfew. Our understanding is that after a meeting with leaders of the security establishment, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina apparently made the decision to resign."

“At very short notice, she requested approval to come for the moment to India. We simultaneously received a request for flight clearance from the Bangladesh authorities. She arrived yesterday evening in Delhi,” Jaishankar added.

In his statement to the House, Jaishankar asserted that the government is in close and continuous touch with the Indian community in Bangladesh through diplomatic missions.

“ There are an estimated 19,000 Indian nationals there, of which about 9,000 are students. The bulk of students have already returned to India in the month of July on the advice of the High Commission.”

“In terms of our diplomatic presence, in addition to the High Commission in Dhaka, we have Assistant High Commissions in Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna and Sylhet. It is our expectation that the host government will provide the required security protection for these establishments. We look forward to their normal functioning once the situation stabilizes,” he added.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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