BNP has strongly criticised West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her call to deploy UN peacekeeping forces in Bangladesh and asked her to withdraw such a deregulatory statement.

“Such a statement is a clear threat to Bangladesh’s independence and sovereignty. I think that Mamata Banerjee should withdraw her statement immediately,” BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir made the call in an instant reaction to the statement on Monday.

Earlier in the day, Mamata Banerjee called for deploying UN peacekeeping forces in Bangladesh and demanded Indian Premier Narendra Modi’s personal intervention to ensure the safety of religious minorities.

In his reaction over the phone from London, Fakhrul said that the people of Bangladesh gained independence through a freedom fight and they restored democracy through a recent mass upsurge.   

Sensing conspiracy in Mamata’s statement, Fakhrul said the people of the country will thwart such a plot at any cost.

He also blasted the role of Indian media over minority communities in Bangladesh and said that the imaginary stories being published in the media are not acceptable in any way.

Many journalists from India and its West Bengal province visited Bangladesh but they did not find any such situation of deploying the UN peacekeeping forces, he said.  

“Indian media and their policymakers are publishing false news issuing a threat to our independence and sovereignty. We the countrymen will never accept such a threat,” he said.

Fakhrul said a group of vested quarters has begun a conspiracy in a new dimension, centring the arrest of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) leader Chinmoy Krishna Das.

“It is very clear that ISKCON's recent role is highly suspicious, mysterious and a threat to the country’s independence and sovereignty, as well as to its overall stability,” said the BNP leader.