News:

The Chief Minister of West Bengal, India, Mamata Banerjee has visited Bangladesh on February 19, 2015 on a three-day courtesy trip at the invitation of the Government of Bangladesh to strengthen bilateral relations between Bangladesh and West Bengal.  At a press briefing the day before, Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed their hope to settle the long pending Teesta River water sharing pact and ratification of the land boundary agreement with India during Mamata's visit.

Comment:

Mamata Banerjee's visit has been portrayed as a crucial one by the Hasina government, intending to trick the Bangladeshi people into thinking that the visit would settle the pending water sharing and land boundary pacts between India and Bangladesh. But the fact of the matter is that historically India has always been a fierce enemy to Bangladesh's national interests and has never cared about these issues. A false hope has deliberately been created for Mamata's visit in much the same way it was created during the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit in 2011. We all know that back then Mamata pulled herself out of Manmohan's entourage at the very last minute in protest of the Teesta water sharing agreement to win over West Bengal's public opinion on her side.

Back in 1975 India first constructed the notorious Farakka Dam on the Ganges River and since then has constructed many dams and kept diverting water supply from the upstream of 50 out of 54 international rivers flowing through India to Bangladesh, causing ruthless sufferings to Bangladeshi farmers. Such cruel one-sided withdrawal of water has brought about havoc to growing crops on thousands of hectares land in northern Bangladesh. And not only the agriculture, but Bangladesh's water-based biodiversity, habitation and fisheries resources are also facing extinction as Teesta and many other riverbed turns into desert-like sandy zone during the lean seasons. Nevertheless, Mamata has always been adamant on her anti-Bangladesh stance and, all of a sudden, there is no apparent reason for her to risk her political career by being sympathetic towards the Bangladeshi Muslims while going against the public opinion of her constituency especially before the coming state election.

Had she really been serious to settle these issues, she would have brought technical experts on water resources along with her 39-member delegation; rather that was mainly a cultural delegation full of dancers, singers and actors of West Bengal. Moreover, there was no separate agenda on Teesta and Land Boundary agreements during her 3-day visit and she rather talked about those deals while attending a cultural program indicative of the level of seriousness both Hasina and Mamata had about settling those issues. The prominent Indian newspaper "The Hindu" stated that Mamata had been invited by Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali to attend the historic occasion commemorating the Bengali Language Movement of 1952. Moreover, Mamata also kept a group of West Bengal-based businessmen in her delegation team to pave the way for them in Bangladesh more lucratively. Hence, unsurprisingly, Indian delegates got what they had expected while Bangladesh got another round of false promise by India with no explicit timeline to resolve the illusive deals. So this cunning maneuvering by Mamata in cahoots with Sheikh Hasina was nothing but to fulfill their political agenda.

We call upon the Muslims of Bangladesh to work actively with Hizb ut Tahrir to establish the rightly guided Khilafah "Caliphate" that can only protect the resources of this noble Ummah. The political work of Hizb ut Tahrir has gathered momentum and victory of Allah is very near for the believers, insha'Allah and with the promised Khilafah "Caliphate" state Allah (swt) will bring humiliation to the disbelieving and polytheist states and their lackeys.

((يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِنْ تَنْصُرُوا اللَّهَ يَنْصُرْكُمْ وَيُثَبِّتْ أَقْدَامَكُمْ))

"Oh you who have believed, if you support Allah, He will support you and plant your feet firmly." [Surah Muhammad: 7]

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by

Imadul Amin

Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir

in Wilayah Bangladesh