Dhaka : The foreign ministry has instructed Bangladesh High Commissioner to Pakistan Suhrab Hosain to report back to the headquarters as soon as possible. “We officially sent a letter to him to come back to Bangladesh as soon as possible,” said a senior official of the Bangladeshi foreign ministry, reported Dhaka Tribune on Wednesday.
He is under contractual appointment and his tenure will complete next April but he has been recalled before his tenure is expired.The official said he telephoned the foreign ministry asking if he could complete his tenure but his request was turned down and asked to immediately come back.
The Bangladeshi government was uncomfortable with his certain activities.Another foreign ministry official said just after the execution of war criminals Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Muzahid on November 20, he came back to Dhaka.
After the execution, Islamabad issued a statement and Bangladesh summoned Pakistan high commissioner and handed over a protest letter. In retaliation, Pakistan summoned Bangladesh acting high commissioner and protested the protest letter. “In this whole crisis period, he was sitting in Dhaka while a junior diplomat, who acted as the acting high commissioner, had to face all the difficulties,” the official said.
The high commissioner was asked to go back to Islamabad in the first week of December but he delayed his journey till December 9 when all the major difficulties were over, he said.
The government has decided to send a professional diplomat to take over the charge of Bangladesh mission in Islamabad and sought Pakistan approval in this regard, he said. Suhrab Hosain was appointed as the high commissioner for two years in 2010 and he got extension twice for four years.
Asked about the reason behind Suhrab Hossain’s recall, Bangladeshi Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque told bdnews24.com that his contract was about to expire. “It’s normal,” he said, when asked whether the order was linked to any negligence of duties on the high commissioner’s part.
“It takes time to complete the process,” Haque said, when asked about the order of recall being served before the expiry of the contract.
A freedom fighter, Hossain joined the Bangladesh Foreign Service in 1973.