India to resume tourist visas for Bangladeshis after nearly two-year freeze

DHAKA, June 25 — India will resume issuing tourist visas in neighbouring Bangladesh, its envoy to Dhaka said today, nearly two years after relations soured when New Delhi’s ally Sheikh Hasina was overthrown.

India’s new high commissioner to Bangladesh, Dinesh Trivedi, told reporters that tourist visa processing would resume on June 28.

“We hope this will further strengthen people-to-people ties between our two sovereign nations,” Trivedi said.

Relations between the neighbours have been strained since the August 2024 uprising.

Hasina has been in hiding in India ever since she fled the revolt, and Bangladesh has repeatedly requested her extradition. She has been sentenced to death in absentia in Dhaka.

Ties improved after Prime Minister Tarique Rahman won a landslide election victory, taking over from the interim administration that had led the country of 170 million people since Hasina was ousted.

India later resumed issuing visas for medical purposes.

Bangladesh shares a 4,096-kilometre (2,545-mile) land border with its neighbour, and the nations have traditionally close cultural and historical relations.

But the relationship remains tricky, with India sending those it accuses of being illegal migrants across the frontier to Bangladesh. — AFP