Bangladesh summons Indian diplomat after adviser questioned in New Delhi

Bangladesh’s summons of India’s deputy high commissioner in Dhaka turned a single airport confrontation into a test of one of South Asia’s most sensitive relationships. The case of Zahed Ur Rahman, a senior government strategy adviser to Tarique Rahman, has landed in the middle of unresolved disputes over borders, migration, asylum and political trust.

Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman said the treatment of Zahed Ur Rahman was “unexpected and unfortunate,” after Dhaka formally raised the matter with Indian diplomat Pawan Badhe. The protest followed reports that Zahed Ur Rahman had been detained and questioned for roughly two to two and a half hours at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi before being allowed to continue.

Zahed Ur Rahman had traveled on a regular Bangladeshi passport with a SAARC visa, not a diplomatic passport, and was on his way to attend the 28th Meeting of the Committee of Senior Officials of the Indian Ocean Rim Association in New Delhi. One account said he later chose to return to Bangladesh after the delay. India’s foreign ministry had no immediate response to the protest.

The fallout matters because the airport episode arrived just days after both governments tried to steady the wider relationship. On June 12, Bangladesh and India agreed to deepen border cooperation through better intelligence sharing and coordinated patrols after a four-day meeting of senior border officials. That outreach came against a backdrop of sharp friction over migration and border enforcement.

Bangladesh said on June 4 that it had foiled multiple attempts by India to force people across the border, while Dhaka has also accused Indian authorities of trying to push undocumented migrants over the frontier without using agreed repatriation procedures. The two countries share a border of more than 4,000 kilometers, making every dispute over movement, screening and patrols politically charged as well as operationally difficult.

The diplomatic tension also sits atop a deeper political rupture that dates to the 2024 uprising that ousted Sheikh Hasina. Reuters reported that Hasina remains in India despite repeated extradition requests from Bangladesh, keeping asylum and accountability at the center of bilateral mistrust. In that context, the questioning of a senior adviser was read in Dhaka not as a routine checkpoint dispute, but as another signal that border politics can quickly spill into state-to-state relations and shape the balance of influence between the two neighbors.