DHAKA, 14 March 2005 — Bangladesh has protested to India over its plan to build a dam in northeastern Assam state, saying it would dry up downstream tributaries crucial for farmers, according to a press report yesterday. “We are seriously concerned about it and sent a note verbal through our high commissioner in New Delhi to the Indian government with a request to resolve the problem through discussion,” Foreign Minister Morshed Khan was quoted as saying by the private UNB news agency.
Bangladesh’s farm-dependent economy relies on water that flows from India during the annual monsoon that sweeps the Subcontinent from June to August. The sharing of water has been a key issue between the countries for decades.
The foreign minister said a dam at Tipaimukh on Assam’s Barak River could dry up two downstream tributaries in northeastern Bangladesh, the Surma and the Kushiara. A spokesman for a government river board which coordinates anti-flood operations in northeastern India said the dam remained a proposal and construction had not yet started.
Bangladesh’s call for talks came two days after hundreds of protesters organized by the Bharater Nadi Aggression Protirodh Jatiya Committee (National Committee to Resist India’s River Aggression) organized a two-day march in the northeastern district of Sylhet to protest the plan. Bangladesh has said it has lost $3 billion of farming and fisheries output because of India’s water diversion projects.
Opposition Rally for New Elections
Hundreds of opposition supporters in Bangladesh joined hands to form a human chain yesterday to demand that the government resign and call early elections.
The main opposition Awami League was joined by smaller allies in the anti-government demonstration in downtown Dhaka, the capital. Similar protests were held in towns and cities across the country.
Riot police stood by and watched as demo strators in Dhaka held banners and shouted slogans. Some roads were closed to traffic in the busy commercial area. “This government is ineffective and corruption is pervasive,” said Abdul Jalil, an Awami League spokesman.
The Awami League and its allies have also called for a nationwide general strike on March 27 as part of their campaign to call for early elections. The shutdown will be the ninth opposition-called strike since a Jan. 27 grenade attack killed former Finance Minister Shah Mohammad Kibria and four other Awami League supporters at a political rally.
Meanwhile, army-led Joint Interrogation Cell yesterday began questioning 9 Indians engaged in erecting a dais in Laksham in eastern Comilla district for Khaleda. The investigators are looking at possibilities of the Indians involved in a conspiracy that could have posed a threat to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s life. Khaleda Zia put off her trip to Laksham yesterday at the advice of the elite Special Security Force. The nine Indian nationals had crossed into Bangladesh on March 9 without travel documents.
Khaleda was scheduled to address a public meeting at Laksham and inaugurate an auditorium yesterday. The Indians were picked up from the venue of the public meeting, where they were engaged in constructing the podium. — Additional input from agencies.
