Daily Times

A delegation from Bangladesh led by the country’s parliament speaker has cancelled its visit to New Delhi amid the turmoil over India’s controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, a local newspaper reported late Sunday.

“Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury was scheduled to lead an 18-member delegation to India following an invitation from the Lok Sabha [India’s lower house of parliament], but the tour has been cancelled,” said the Dhaka Tribune, quoting Noor-e-Alam Chowdhury Liton, the chief whip of parliament.

Liton, however, also cited another reason for the cancellation.

“There will be a special session of the Jatiya Sangsad [Bangladesh’s parliament] on March 22-23 on the occasion of celebrating the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.”

The delegation will visit India in a convenient time after the special session is over, he added.

At least 42 people were killed in Hindu-Muslim violence in northeast New Delhi, amid mounting international criticism that authorities failed to protect minority Muslims.

The clashes began over a citizenship law that Indian Prime Minister Modi’s Hindu nationalist government introduced in December providing a path to Indian citizenship for six religious groups from neighbouring countries – but not Muslims.

Critics say the law is discriminatory and comes on top of other measures such as withdrawal of autonomy for Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir, which has deepened disquiet about the future of India’s 200 million Muslims.

Critics of the government however blamed this week’s violence on members of Modi’s BJP, which was trounced in local Delhi elections at the beginning of the month.

The violence morphed into street battles between Hindu and Muslim groups, with the police largely ineffective in ending the violence.