Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
Relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan received another blow when Bangladesh government summoned Pakistan’s High Commissioner Shuja Alam in Dhaka over the brief disappearance of a Bangladesh foreign mission employee in Islamabad on Monday. At the same day, an employee of Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka was picked up by DB police from near his residence in Gulshan-2 as he was reportedly roaming in front of BNP office causing suspicion to law enforcing personnel.
A press statement by the Pakistan High Commission issued on Monday night said that Abrar Ahmed Khan, assistant private secretary at the Press Section, was picked up at 11am by detectives.
He was, however, handed over to the mission officials by police at 6pm.
It appears that the two incidents took place in the two capitals almost at few hours difference and many doubted that the Bangladesh High Commission employee was picked up in Islamabad by Pakistani security personnel as a reaction of event in Dhaka. One is not sure but the sequence is also suggestive of a tit for tat taking hostage the bilateral relations of the two countries which is not going well in recent past. More interesting is that when the employee of Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka was released, Bangladesh High Commission employee in Islamabad also came to the visibility nearly after seven hours.
Acting foreign secretary Rear Admiral (retd) Khurshed Alam summoned the Pakistan envoy at the foreign office on Tuesday noon to demand an explanation how Bangladesh High Commission employee in Islamabad went missing and surfaced again.
Shuja Alam reached the foreign office at noon and left the place after having hour long meeting with the Bangladesh acting Foreign Secretary.
Secretary (bilateral) Mizanur Rahman was also present at the meeting.
“Yes, High Commissioner Shuja Alam was called at the foreign ministry,” an official at foreign office, told The New Nation on Tuesday afternoon.
The official further said that Alam was conveyed Bangladesh government’s concern and displeasure over the brief disappearance of Bangladesh foreign mission official in Islamabad.
“Dhaka also handed over a strongly worded note to Pakistan envoy regarding the matter and sought Islamabad’s explanation over the mysterious disappearance of Bangladesh foreign mission official,” he added.
Jahangir Hossain, personal officer of Press Counsellor Iqbal Hossain at Bangladesh High Commission in Islamabad, went missing on Monday evening. His family and colleagues had been clueless about his whereabouts for nearly seven hours. Jahangir had been missing since around 6:00pm (Pakistan time) and returned unharmed around 12:45am (Pakistan time), officials in the foreign office said.
After his office hours on Monday evening in Islamabad, Jahangir went to pick up his daughter from a coaching centre. But, Jahangir’s daughter did not find her father there and waited for hours.
Later, she called her mother and informed her about the matter. Jahangir’s cell phone was found switched off and the High Commission officials could not find him out.
Bangladesh High Commissioner in Islamabad, Suhrab Hossain, brought the matter to the notice of Pakistan Foreign Ministry and police and sought steps to find out the missing staff. Jahangir, however, returned home unhurt at about Pakistan time 12:45am on Tuesday.
“The mysterious disappearance of Jahangir seems to be a response to what happened in Dhaka the same day,” Dr Tareque Shamsur Rahman, a Professor of International Relations Department at Jahangirnagar University, told The New Nation on Tuesday.
Terming the latest incident ‘unexpected’, Dr Rahman said that Pakistan government did this from an attitude of taking revenge. “The move of Pakistan government is also contradictory to the diplomatic norms,” he added.
Diplomatic sources said, Dhaka and Islamabad ties have been steadily deteriorating after Islamabad’s “audacious” reactions following executions of two key 1971 war crimes convicts and Islamabad’s withdrawal of a “terror-linked” diplomat.
Pakistan Foreign Ministry in a statement on November 22 last year, voiced “deep concern and anguish” over the death sentences of the key war criminals Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed.
“Pakistan is deeply disturbed at this development (executions),” read the statement.
The reaction prompted the Bangladesh government to summon Pakistan’s envoy in Dhaka and strongly protest the comments. In a tit-for-tat move, Pakistan government also summoned Bangladesh’s acting High Commissioner in Islamabad.
The diplomatic spat between Bangladesh and Pakistan just got worse after Bangladesh expelled a female Pakistani diplomat posted at its High Commission in Dhaka.
Bangladesh expelled the diplomat after being accusing her of spying and involvement in financing outlawed outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
Later, Pakistan called Fareena Arshad back but denied that she had links with any terrorist outfit in Bangladesh.
An act of retaliation, Pakistan later expelled Maushumi Rahman, the political counsellor at the Bangladeshi High Commission in Islamabad.
