Bangladesh PM’s adviser was stopped at Delhi airport as his name was on ‘blacklist’

Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s Information and Broadcasting Adviser Zahed Ur Rahman was stopped by immigration officials at the Delhi airport on June 14 as his name had been included in a “blacklist” generated by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in 2025.

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Mr. Rahman was travelling using a regular passport with a SAARC visa to participate in a conference in India. As his name had not been withdrawn from the blacklist, it led the immigration authorities to stop him at the Delhi airport following a system-generated alert against his name, government sources told The Hindu.

According to Prothom Alo, a Bangladesh-based news paper, the Bangladesh High Commission sent a formal letter to India’s Ministry of External Affairs on June 12, 2026, confirming that Mr. Rahman would lead the Bangladeshi delegation at the conference.

Mr. Rahman was reportedly placed on the blacklist by the MEA as he had made anti-India remarks in the past on social media platforms. A blacklist or a negative list contains the names of foreign nationals who are to be denied visas.

After the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) assumed power in the neighbouring country in February 2026, Mr. Rahman was appointed as an adviser holding the rank of a State Minister in the Bangladesh government.

He was nominated by the Bangladesh government to attend a meeting of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) in Delhi. IORA is an inter-governmental organisation, comprising 23 countries, established on March 7, 1997. At present, India is the Chair of IORA for a period of two years (2025-2027).

“Zahed Ur Rahman, Information & Broadcasting Adviser of Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman was allowed by the immigration to enter India but he chose to return from the airport in Delhi,” said a source in response to a question on whether MEA officials had forgotten to remove Mr. Rahman’s name from the blacklist before his arrival in Delhi to attend the IORA conference.

When the case was flagged by the Bangladesh High Commission, the immigration notice against Mr. Rahman was withdrawn and he was allowed to enter India, sources said. The process took more than two hours, prompting Mr. Rahman to return to Dhaka via a connecting flight from Colombo.

In 2016, the Union government informed Parliament that “names of foreign nationals and foreigners of Indian origin who are found to have indulged in anti-India activities, heinous crimes or violated visa rules are placed in a negative list after due consultations…Such persons are barred from entering into India for specified time period.”

Several government departments, including State Police, can recommend names to be put in a negative list, which are then forwarded to the Bureau of Immigration (BOI), which screens for such entries at airports and land and sea-ports.