Muhammad Yunus, interim head of the Bangladesh government. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters
India is hosting former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, who killed young people, said Prof. Mohammed Yunus, Chief Adviser of the interim government of Bangladesh, on Wednesday (September 24, 2025), on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly’s annual session in New York.
Speaking at an Asia Society conversation that was moderated by Asia Society’s President and former Foreign Minister of South Korea, Kyung Wha Kang, Prof. Yunus blamed “one country” for the lack of movement in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and said India did not like the student-people movement that has led to the current downturn in India-Bangladesh relation.
“We have problems with India right now because of what the students have done. They are hosting Hasina, the former Prime Minister, who created all these problems and killed the young people, and that creates a lot of tension between India and Bangladesh. There is a lot of fake news coming from the other side that these are Islamists and that they are Taliban,” said Prof. Yunus, referring to the political problem that has been continuing since former Prime Minister Hasina fled to India on August 5, 2024 after her government was overthrown in the student-people movement.
Mr. Yunus, who is travelling in the United States for the UNGA’s annual session, held a number of meetings over the past few days and on September 23 met with Sergio Gor, Special Envoy of U.S. President Donald Trump for South and Central Asia and raised the importance of connecting Nepal, Bhutan, as well as India’s northeast.
He also told Mr. Gor, who is also the Ambassador-Designate of the United States for India, that Bangladesh has “intensified” efforts to restart the SAARC.
In his conversation, he highlighted the importance of SAARC in the South Asian region and said the grouping is important for multiple reasons in South Asia, like education, business and connectivity.
“You can invest in Bangladesh. SAARC is made of very close family members. The whole idea of SAARC was born in Bangladesh. We promoted this idea from capital to capital in the South Asian region, promoting SAARC. Our history gives us the opportunity but somehow it did not fit into the politics of one country. We feel very sorry for that,” said Chief Adviser Yunus.
The last SAARC summit was held in Kathmandu in November 2014. The next summit was due in Islamabad, but India cancelled participation in the meeting after a terror attack in Uri. After India decided to withdraw from the summit, citing “cross border terrorism” from Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan also withdrew from the summit.
Published – September 26, 2025 12:02 am IST
