BANGLADESH NEWS
A special flight carrying him left the Shahjalal International
Airport at around 6:50pm. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina saw the first
Bengali President of India off at the airport.
It was Mukherjee’s
first visit to any country after getting elected as the President last
year. He is the first Indian President to visit Bangladesh after
President V V Giri, who visited in 1974.
Apart from his meeting with President Mohammad Zillur Rahman and Hasina, he also met a number of politicians of various parties.
Main
opposition BNP’s Chairperson Khaleda Zia, however, cancelled her
meeting when the President arrived on Sunday citing security reasons due
to the shutdown called by key ally Jamaat-e-Islami.
The President also awarded an honorary Doctorate of Law degree by the
Dhaka University on Monday at its 47th convocation which he addressed.
Bangladesh
also bestowed on the President -- who has had a long political career
spanning over six decades with the ruling Congress Party -- the
‘Bangladesh Liberation War Honour’ for his contribution to the 1971 War
of Independence.
He also visited the Bangabandhu Museum where the
founding father of Bangladesh was brutally killed along with his family
members on Aug 15, 1975 and recalled him as ‘a great leader’.
The
President was moved by the gesture of Bangladesh as he spoke
emotionally about this country where his wife had spent her childhood.
Mukherjee
visited the residence of his father-in-law at Bhadrabila in Narail
Sadar upazila on Tuesday after inaugurating the broad-gauge locomotives
and tanker wagons of the Bangladesh Railway recently supplied under the
Indian Line of Credit.
He had also visited the
Bharateswari Homes run by the Kumudini Trust in Tangail and Shilaidaha
Kuthibari, the ancestral home of Rabindranath Tagore.
“I am touched by your warm gesture,” the President said at Bangabhaban while receiving the liberation war honours.
He assured to stand beside the people of Bangladesh ‘as in 1971, so in 2013’.
“We
will walk with you as equal partners, shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm.
We are both inheritors of an undivided civilisational legacy.”
In
1971, Mukherjee was 36 years old and a lawmaker from the Indian
Congress party when Bangladeshis were battling for their country.
He
recollected those days, “On Jun 15, 1971, I had the privilege to
initiate a discussion in India’s Upper House and I had suggested that
India accord diplomatic recognition to the government of Bangladesh in
exile in Mujibnagar.”
During his speech in the convocation, the
President said he had been ‘deeply impressed by the maturity, awareness
and involvement’ of Bangladesh’s youths in nation building.
“Looking
at you, I am convinced that the future of Bangladesh is bright,” he
said and touching an emotional chord of friendship, he added, “India
will stand by your side in realising the dream of ‘Sonar Bangla’ a
reality.”
He also promised his country's support for Bangladesh’s
‘comprehensive development’, saying the destiny of the two nations were
interwoven ‘just like our history and culture.’
In his speeches
and meetings with political leaders, he also reiterated that unsettled
issues like Teesta water sharing and ratification of the land
boundary agreement between India and Bangladesh would be settled soon
Foreign Minister Dipu Moni while briefing journalists before the
President left said his ‘programme itself speaks of the depth and
breadth of the relationship between Bangladesh and India.’
She described the President’s visit ‘very substantive and fruitful.’
No comments:
Post a Comment