Home adviser lieutenant general (retired) Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury on Tuesday called upon the United States to offer refuge to more Rohingyas as US cmbassy Chargé d’affaires in Dhaka Tracey Ann Jacobson paid a courtesy call on him.
‘From the very onset [of the crisis] the United States took a lead role in providing humanitarian assistance to Rohingya refugees. By now they have extended refuge to a number of Rohingyas,’ a home ministry press release quoted him as saying during the meeting.
‘I call upon the US to rehabilitate more of them [Rohingyas],’ Jahangir added.
According the press release Jacobson told the adviser that her country by then provided refuge to around 17,000 Rohingyas under a process which was still underway.
She said that the US was the largest donor for the development and rehabilitation of Rohingyas while its state-run US-Aid agency was working with Bangladeshi NGOs to improve their quality of life.
The press release said that their talks were featured by several other issues of mutual interests like security and counter-terrorism, capacity building of law enforcement agencies and police reform commission, the border situation, minority issues, and cooperation in agricultural sector.
In response to a query over Bangladesh-India frontier issue by the envoy, the adviser said that the border situation was by and large normal and chiefs of two border forces were scheduled to hold a meeting next month in New Delhi.
Asked by Chargé d’affaires if minority community members were being persecuted, Jahangir said that no minority was being persecuted in Bangladesh.
‘This is propaganda by the Indian media,’ the release quoted him.
The adviser told the envoy that the few incidents that took place relating to the minorities after August 5, 2024, occurred due to political reasons, not because of any religious factor.
Jahangir said that Bangladesh did not want to use the word ‘minority’ as everyone was a citizen of the country, having equal rights.