- Wednesday, February 26, 2025
AK Abdul Momen said despite repeated requests, Canada has not extradited the ‘self-confessed killer’ of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh, to Dhaka.
By: Shubham Ghosh
DAYS after the foreign minister of Sri Lanka blasted Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and accused Ottawa of interfering in matters of other nations, India found yet another neighbour hitting out at the North American nation at a time when its diplomatic spat with it deepened over the murder of a Khalistan separatist leader in British Columbia in June.
AK Abdul Momen, the foreign minister of Bangladesh, recently said in an interview with India Today that Canada should not become a hub of murderers and refrain from providing them with a safe shelter.
“Canada must not be a hub of all murderers. The murderers can go to Canada and take shelter, and they can have a wonderful life while those they killed, their relatives are suffering,” the veteran leader said.
Bangladesh has been for long trying to bring back two fugitive army officers — Rashed Chowdhury and Noor Chowdhury — from the US and Canada, respectively, for being involved in the killing of Rahman and several members of his family at their Dhaka residence on August 15, 1975.
Momen’s remarks came days after India strongly objected to Trudeau’s allegations that New Delhi was involved in the killing of Nijjar, calling them “absurd” and “motivated”. India even suspended issuing visas to Canadian citizens after both countries expelled each other’s diplomats accusing them of interfering in their respective internal affairs.
The Bangladeshi diplomat though did not touch the India-Canada row in depth saying he did not know in detail about it, he spoke about Dhaka’s own issue with Ottawa. He said the killer of Sheikh Mujibar Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh and father of the current prime minister Sheikh Hasina, is in Canada and requests from Dhaka to extradite the “self-confessed killer of Bangabandhu” (Rahman) have fallen on deaf ears.
“…We have been requesting the Canadian government to send back the self-confessed killer of Bangabandhu, the father of our nation. Unfortunately, Canada is not listening to us and they have come up with a variety of excuses,” he said.
Momen said Canada’s excuse is not understandable and added that the law must not protect a murderer. He accused the North American nation of protecting the “bad guys”.
Earlier this week, Ali Sabry, foreign minister of Sri Lanka, said terrorists have found safe haven in Canada and that prime minister Justin Trudeau came out with outrageous allegations without any evidence.
Speaking exclusively to Asian News International, the minister said he was “not surprised” by the Canadian premier’s remarks saying the latter keeps making “outrageous and substantiated allegations”.
“Some of the terrorists have found safe haven in Canada. The Canadian PM has this way of just coming out with some outrageous allegations without any supporting proof. The same thing they did for Sri Lanka, a terrible, total lie about saying that Sri Lanka had a genocide. Everybody knows there was no genocide in our country,” Sabry added.
