Dhaka-Islamabad spat continues

By

Sheuli Akter

Pakistan’s high commissioner in Dhaka has been summoned by the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs over a Bangladesh mission staffer’s disappearance for seven hours in Islamabad.

Amid escalating diplomatic tension between Dhaka and Islamabad, Acting Foreign Secretary Rear Admiral (retd) Khurshed Alam summoned Pakistani High Commissioner Shuja Alam at 1:00 p.m. (local time) Tuesday.

According to sources, handing the “strongly-worded” protest note to Pakistan High Commissioner Shuja Alam, Dhaka called on Islamabad to refrain from repeating such uncalled for activities.

Jahangir Hossain, a press wing personal staff of Bangladesh High Commission in Islamabad, went missing on Monday afternoon.

He returned unharmed seven hours after his disappearance in Islamabad.

Hossain went missing hours after Abrar Ahmed Khan, a press section assistant private secretary at the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka, was detained for hours by police reportedly for “suspicious movement”.

Khan was later been handed over to the high commission officials .

Pakistan last month ordered a senior Bangladeshi diplomat to leave the country in what appears to be a tit-for-tat move nearly two weeks after Bangladesh had asked Pakistan to withdraw a diplomat.

Relations between Dhaka and Islamabad have been tense over the execution of leaders of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party for the alleged war crimes during the country’s war of independence in 1971.

Sheuli Akter

Sheuli Akter, from Bangladesh, is a Special Correspondent and Editor of NsNewsWire, (Bangladesh’s First Press Newswire). Previously she had worked for Bangladesh’ top news agency, United News of Bangladesh (UNB) and top newspaper (now defunct) The Bangladesh Observer. She also gained an honourable mention in the first ever World Media Summit WMS Awards for ‘Exemplary News Professionals in Developing Countries’, receiving the award in Beijing in January 2015.