Bangladesh foreign affairs adviser Mohammad Touhid Hossain on Tuesday said that interim government chief Muhammad Yunus had raised the issue of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina's extradition from India during a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Bangkok recently.
"We raised the issue but nothing was finalised," he told reporters at the foreign ministry declining to elaborate further when asked if Yunus discussed Hasina's extradition to make her stand trial.
Hossain, however, said that progress in Dhaka-Delhi relations required efforts from both sides as "we need to move forward together."
Chief adviser Yunus held a meeting with Modi on Friday on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC summit in Thailand.
Following their talks, external affairs secretary Vikram Misri told reporters that PM Modi had urged all parties to refrain from rhetoric that could damage the atmosphere of bilateral engagement.
A day after the meeting, Yunus's press secretary Shafiqul Alam wrote on his Facebook account that Bangladesh's interim government chief raised Hasina's extradition issue and claimed that the response was not negative.
However, people familiar with the matter said on Saturday that the Bangladeshi version of the meeting between Yunus and Modi was mischievous and politically motivated, especially the aspects relating to attacks on minorities and Dhaka's request for extraditing Hasina.
The characterisation of the Indian prime minister's remarks regarding the relationship with Yunus and the previous Bangladesh government were inaccurate, the people cited above said on Dhaka's official readout on the meeting and the Facebook post by Alam.
In his post, Alam claimed that Modi had said: "We saw her (Hasina's) disrespectful behaviour towards you (Yunus)."
The people cited above said Modi had responded to various issues raised by Yunus by saying that these were best discussed by the foreign ministers of the two countries.
After the Modi-Yunus meeting, external affairs secretary Misri said the Indian premier in that meeting underlined New Delhi's concerns over the safety of minorities, including Hindus, and conveyed the expectation that the Bangladeshi government would ensure their security, including by thoroughly investigating cases of atrocities against them.
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