Dhaka would like to flag its concern over recent anti-Bangladesh rhetoric from the Indian political leadership over ‘controversial’ Citizenship bill passed Wednesday (Dec 11) as it believed they are misinformed by a vested quarter.

The issue is expected to be discussed when Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen will have his scheduled meeting with Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar in Delhi on Dec 14.

Indian lawmakers approved the bill in the lower house on Tuesday and cleared in Rajya Sabha, the upper house, on Wednesday. The bill stipulates that non-Muslim people migrated to India from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan would be given special preferences while considering their citizenship.

The ruling Indian leadership openly equated Bangladesh with Pakistan and Afghanistan and said non-Muslims people are persecuted in the three countries.

A senior foreign ministry official said, “India has passed a bill and essentially it is their internal matter, but we feel uncomfortable when they tagged Bangladesh with the bill.”

The Indian leaders are talking about Bangladesh and we believe that they are misinformed, he said.

“We will give them the message that Islam is the state religion here but in practice, people of all religion enjoy the same rights and there is no obstacle from any side in performing any religion,” he added.

He said, “Any political leadership gets information about any country through different channels that include its own government officials, media, civil society, intel reports and many other ways.”

He said we are of the view that these information channels are somehow fed wrong information about Bangladesh and the foreign minister is likely to flag it.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Momen on Wednesday told journalists that those who gave the Indian side information, they did not give correct information.