Bangladesh might be wary of hosting ‘too strident’ CAA voices

KOLKATA: West Bengal minister Siddiqullah Choudhury on Wednesday said he was forced to cancel his six-day Bangladesh trip, beginning Thursday, after “being denied visa”. Siddiqullah, who is also the Bengal unit president of the Jamiat-e-Ulama, claimed that his “purely personal visit” had been cleared by both the West Bengal government and the external affairs ministry.A senior Bangladesh deputy high commission official, however, refused to either confirm or deny the “visa cancellation” claim and only said the “necessary clearance from Dhaka” hadn’t yet reached “our office in Kolkata”.Siddiqullah had applied for visa on December 23, the official said. “We forward visa applications to Dhaka to get necessary clearance in certain cases. The clearance from Dhaka has not yet reached our Kolkata office. Our office was closed on Wednesday for Christmas,” he said.The minister is one of the most strident voices against the CAA within Trinamool.Foreign affairs analysts in Delhi said the Bangladesh government “may want to play safe on this issue and may be wary of possible repercussions of hosting either pro- or anti-CAA voices that may be deemed too strident”.Siddiqullah said he informed the CM’s office about his trip on December 5 and got the go-ahead on December 8. He then sought clearance from the Centre and got the same on December 13.He then applied online for the visa with his private secretary’s help. “My staff visited the visa office thrice ,” he said.Siddiqullah explained the circumstances that necessitated his trip. “A cousin, who stays in Dhaka, is suffering from cancer. Another relative passed away recently in Sylhet. I was also invited for the centenary celebrations of a madrassa in Sylhet. I was supposed to go with my wife, daughter and our granddaughter. Everything was told to the Bangladesh deputy high commission here,” he told TOI.The Jamiat-e-Ulama-Hind’s Bengal unit issued a press release on Wednesday evening. The release, issued by general secretary Mufti Abdus Salam , urged Siddiqullah’s supporters not to “misbehave” with Bangladesh officials in Kolkata. “They are India’s guests and misbehaving with them would go against our culture,” the release read.