‘Ridiculous’: S Jaishankar calls out Bangladeshi leaders for ‘blaming’ India for everything

External affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has called out leaders of Bangladesh's interim government for making “absolutely ridiculous” charges against India, days after meeting Touhid Hassan, his counterpart from the neighbouring country's caretaker administration, in Oman, amid unprecedented strain in ties between the two nations.

“If every day, someone in the interim government stands up and blames India for everything…some of those things if you look at the reports, are absolutely ridiculous. You cannot, on the one hand, say that 'I would now like to have good relations with you', but I wake up every morning and blame you for everything that goes wrong. It is a decision that they must make,” S Jaishankar said at a public function in New Delhi.

Highlighting India's “special” relationship with Bangladesh, which goes back to 1971, when the Indian Army and the Mukti Bahini liberated what was then known as East Pakistan from West Pakistan (Pakistan), Jaishankar asked Bangladesh to “make up their minds” on the kind of relationship it wants with India.