Kolkata: Senior West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Wednesday said that Indian authorities should immediately stop issuing visas to Bangladeshis, unless the caretaker government in the neighbouring country releases prominent Hindu leader Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari.

Speaking to the media after submitting a deputation to the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission here demanding immediate release of Das, Adhikari also demanded that import and export between the two countries be suspended temporarily until steps were taken to stop torture of the minorities there.

“You know how Hindus are tortured there (Bangladesh). This kind of torture cannot go on. Prabhu Chinmoy Krishna Das has not done anything wrong. We want his immediate release. He has been slapped with false cases. This cannot be allowed. Enough is enough,” Adhikari said.

Das, the spokesperson for Bangladesh Sammilita Sanatani Jagran Jote, was arrested from Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Monday as he was about to fly to Chattogram to join a rally. He was denied bail and sent to jail by a Chattogram court in a sedition case on Tuesday.

The Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly led seven BJP MLAs, mostly from the border areas of the state, in a rally from Kolkata’s Rabindra Sadan area to the Commission office and submitted a deputation in this connection.

Adhikari said, “Stop issuing visas to Bangladeshis completely. Also, stop issuance of permits for export and import. We will wait for a day and launch a blockade at the India-Bangladesh border at Petrapole in North 24 Parganas district in case the incidents of alleged tortures are not stopped,” he said.

The saffron party would also hold a mega rally in the city on December 16 to protest the torture of the minorities there in Bangladesh.

Incidentally, December 16 is celebrated as ‘Victory Day (Bijoy Diwas) in Bangladesh to commemorate the defeat of the Pakistani Armed Forces in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 and its subsequent Independence.

Showing a video footage of a person raising anti-India slogans, whom he claimed to be a cabinet minister in Bangladesh, on his mobile phone, Adhikari asserted there were deliberate attempts to harm the relationship between the two nations.

“India and Bangladesh have a very good relationship. But there are attempts to develop an anti-India sentiment there by the current regime which was never there earlier,” he said.

He asked Bangladeshis to go to Pakistan for treatment instead of choosing Indian hospitals where a large number of patients arrive every year.

“Don’t come here for treatment. Go to Karachi or Lahore,” Adhikari said.

A huge police contingent was posted outside the Commission office as Adhikari led the BJP MLAs in a rally from Rabindra Sadan and staged a demonstration.

Adhikari also said that the Hindu Jagran Manch would be holding a march from Sealdah to the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission office here on Thursday, protesting the arrest of Das. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Republic and is published from a syndicated feed.)