PM Modi chairs high-level meet on Bangladesh unrest

The meeting chaired by PM Modi comes amid the political crisis in Bangladesh after its prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country

Updated on: Aug 5, 2024, 21:06:21 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) that briefed him on the situation unfolding in Bangladesh.

Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh, external affairs minister S Jaishankar, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba, principal secretary to PM PK Mishra, Research and Analysis Wing chief Ravi Sinha and Intelligence Bureau director Tapan Deka were present.

Bangladesh crisis LIVE Updates

The meeting chaired by the prime minister comes amid the political crisis unfolding in neighbouring Bangladesh after its prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country. Hasina arrived at Hindon Airbase wherein she met national security advisor Ajit Doval.

Hasina stepped down after leading Bangladesh for 15 years after protests against her that erupted in mid-July over a quota order escalated into calls for her ouster. The controversial quota system provided for 30 per cent reservations in civil services jobs for the families of veterans who fought the 1971 liberation war.

ALSO READ: With Sheikh Hasina out of office and army taking over, what next for Bangladesh?

Following her exit from the country, the Bangladesh Army has announced that it will help in the formation of an interim government. Army chief Waker-uz-Zaman announced that the military would take over responsibility for law and order. More than 100 people have been killed in the protests against the Hasina government over the last two days.

Hasina had won a fourth straight term only in January this year in an election boycotted by the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of Begum Khaleda Zia. She had ruled since winning a decades-long power struggle with Zia in 2009.

India has suspended all the train services to Bangladesh indefinitely. As per the Ministry of Railways, Maitri Express, Bandhan Express and Mitali Express operated their last trips in mid-July this year and have been cancelled since then due to violent protests in Bangladesh.

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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