Muhammad Yunus, the chief advisor of Bangladesh’s interim government, has sparked a fresh controversy with a gift he gave to a senior member of the Pakistan Army when the duo met in Dhaka.
Yunus gave Pakistan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee chairperson, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, a distorted map of Bangladesh, which shows the northeastern states of India as part of the country.
The photograph was featured on the cover of a book called Art of Triumph: Bangladesh’s New Dawn.
The book celebrates the student movement that swept across the country in 2024, leading to the ouster of then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
What did the two leaders discuss?
As per a social media post by Yunus’ office, “they discussed a wide range of issues concerning Bangladesh–Pakistan relations, including growing importance of bilateral trade, investment, and defence cooperation”.
“Emphasising the shared historical, cultural, and people-to-people ties between the two countries, General Mirza expressed Pakistan’s desire to strengthen cooperation in multiple sectors. He noted the vast potential for expanding trade, connectivity, and investment between Bangladesh and Pakistan,” it further added.
The distorted map on the book cover has sparked controversy, since it aligns with the idea of a so-called ‘Greater Bangladesh’ as propagated by Sultanat-e-Bangla, an Islamist group based out of Dhaka.
The Sultanat-e-Bangla has a version of the map which shows West Bengal and the northeastern states, along with parts of Odisha, Bihar, and Jharkhand, as part of Bangladesh.
This map was first put on public display during a Bengali New Year exhibition held at the Dhaka University earlier this year. In August 2025, MP and senior Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala had raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha.
In a written statement in response to Surjewala, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had then said that Saltanat-e-Bangla is backed by an NGO based out of Turkey called the Turkish Youth Federation. The statement also said that the organisers of the Dhaka University event had denied any connection to a foreign political body.
Yunus himself had earlier commented on the northeastern region of India during a visit to China, where he said, “The seven states of India, the eastern part of India…they are a landlocked country. They have no way to reach out to the ocean.”
Jaishankar, after Yunus’ remark, had said that the northeastern part of India acts as the “connectivity hub” for the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) countries, which comprise India along with Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Myanmar.
Strained India-Bangladesh relations
The relations between India and Bangladesh have become tense since Sheikh Hasina fled the country after the August 2024 agitation and took shelter in India. Furthermore, Yunus has been trying to strengthen Dhaka’s relations with Islamabad and Beijing, a step that has irked New Delhi.
Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh ties, Bangladesh and Pakistan, Bangladesh map row, northeastern states of India, Bangladesh map on book cover, Saltanat-e-Bangla
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