Bangladesh rubs India again, gifts map to Pakistan containing Northeast including Assam

New Delhi: The interim head of the Bangladesh government, Muhammad Yunus, has triggered a controversy by reportedly presenting a Pakistani general with a controversial map in which Assam and other northeastern states have been shown as part of the Dhaka administration.

The incident took place when Pakistan's Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee chairperson, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, visited Dhaka and met Yunus as the bilateral relationship between the countries seem to be getting stronger.

On Sunday, Yunus took to X and posted pictures of his meeting with Mirza. It can be seen that Yunus gifted a book, titled 'Art of Triumph', and its cover had Bangladesh's distorted map. It shows the seven northeastern states as part of the Bangladesh territory. This is not the first time, as Yunus has previously gifted the book with the same cover picture to other dignitaries as well. Notably, radical Islamist groups have repeatedly called for a "Greater Bangladesh" with the northeastern states.

Netizens on social media have slammed Yunus for the distorted map of Bangladesh and demeaning India. Notably, when he visited China in April, Yunus claimed that Bangladesh was the "only guardian of the ocean" for the region, as northeast India was "landlocked".

He told Chinese diplomats, "The seven states of India, the eastern part of India, are a landlocked country. They have no way to reach out to the ocean. "We are the only guardians of the ocean for all this region. So this opens up a huge possibility. So this could be an extension of the Chinese economy."

Reacting to it, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar said, "We, after all, have the longest coastline in the Bay of Bengal, of almost 6,500 km. India shares borders not only with the five BIMSTEC members, and connects most of them, but also provides much of the interface between the Indian sub-continent and ASEAN. Our North-Eastern region in particular is emerging as a connectivity hub for the BIMSTEC, with a myriad network of roads, railways, waterways, grids, and pipelines."

He added, "We are conscious that our cooperation and facilitation are an essential prerequisite for the smooth flow of goods, services, and people in this larger geography. Keeping this geo-strategic factor in mind, we have devoted increasing energies and attention to the strengthening of BIMSTEC in the last decade. We also believe that cooperation is an integrated outlook, not one subject to cherry-picking."