Bangladesh Independence Day celebrated in Tripura

The event included reading out messages from Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, External Affairs Minister AK Abdul Momen and others. Tripura Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha and other government functionaries, professionals were expected to join the Bangladesh Assistant High Commission authorities in an event this evening.

Several Indian nationals living in Tripura accorded with honours for their contribution to the Bangladesh Liberation War were also expected to join the event.

The 1971 Indo-Pak war and liberation of sovereign Bangladesh meant a lot for India and South East Asia. While geopolitically, it dramatically changed the balance against Pakistan’s interests, for India’s internal affairs, a change in demography was the most imminent issue at hand, especially in Tripura, which accepted a major share of the refugees who had fled atrocities of the Pakistan forces.

A state which then had 14 lakh people, Tripura sheltered nearly 15 lakh East Pakistani refugees, ran at least eight major Muktijoddha (liberation warrior) training camps and attended to 1.5 million refugees for months with the support of the central government. Tripura had virtually become the headquarters of Bangladeshi liberation planning and activity and one of the safe havens for liberation war refugees apart from Bengal in those days.

Once a land-locked state in Northeast India, Tripura is now set to become the second gateway for the region in terms of trade and commerce, with a host of connectivity projects with Bangladesh in the pipeline which are expected to grant direct access to Chittagong and Mongla ports in the neighbouring country, opening new routes for business and passenger movement.

The state now shares two integrated checkposts (ICP) – one of which is operational and the other in an advanced stage of work ahead of completion, several Land Custom Stations (LCS), an inland waterway connectivity route, a friendship bridge which serves as a corridor for international goods transport along the 856 Km long international border between Bangladesh and Tripura – the second highest length of the border between these two countries in any state after West Bengal.

A host of bilateral connectivity projects are in the pipeline between India and Bangladesh through Tripura, including an Agartala-Dhaka-Kolkata railway connectivity project through Akhaura, which is expected to be commissioned by the end of this year.