Bangladesh Foreign Minister calls Amit Shah’s remarks ‘unacceptable’

Responding to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s comments that the poor people of Bangladesh come to India as they don’t have enough to eat in their own country, Bangladesh foreign minister A K Abdul Momen on Wednesday said that the minister’s knowledge of Bangladesh is “limited”. He also said such remarks are “unacceptable especially when relations between Bangladesh and India are so deep. Such remarks create misunderstanding.”

Momen’s remarks came on Tuesday night when he was asked about Shah’s comments published in the Indian media. In comments to Bangladesh’s leading Bengali daily, Prothom Alo, the Bangladeshi minister said, “Prithibi-te onek gyani lok aachhen, dekheo dekhen na, jeneo janen na. Tobe teeni (Amit Shah) jodi seta bole thaken, aami bolbo, Bangladesh niye taar gyan seemito. aamader desh-e ekhon keu na kheye morey na. Ekhane kono monga-o neyi. (There are many wise people in this world, some who don’t want to see even after looking, they don’t want to understand even after knowing about it. But, if he (Amit Shah) has said that, I would say that his knowledge about Bangladesh is limited. Nobody dies of hunger in Bangladesh. There are no Monga (seasonal poverty and hunger in northern districts of Bangladesh).”

In many sectors, Bangladesh is far ahead of Shah’s country, Momen said.

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Shah had said that the poor people of Bangladesh come to India as even now they do not get enough to eat in their own country. Infiltration from Bangladesh will be stopped if BJP comes to power in West Bengal, he said.

Stressing that Bangladesh is ahead of India on many social indices, Momen said while almost 90 per cent of the people in Bangladesh use fairly good latrines, over 50 per cent people in India do not have proper toilets.

The minister said there is a shortage of jobs for educated people in Bangladesh, but no such scarcity for the less educated. Besides, over 1 lakh people from India work in Bangladesh, he said. “We do not need to go to India,” he said.