PM begins India visit by offering prayer at Nizamuddin Dargah

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Prime minister Sheikh Hasina today started her four-day state visit to India from the much-revered Nizamuddin Aulia Dargah here.

She spent there for some time offering Fateha and munajat.

“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina offered nafal prayers and munajat, seeking development, prosperity and welfare of the country, the nation as well as the entire Muslim ummah,” PM’s Deputy Press Secretary KM Shakhawat Moon told journalists.

The premier, later, went around the Dargah of Nizamuddin Aulia, he said.

The almost 700-year-old Dargah is the nerve centre of Sufi culture in India.

Sheikh Hasina was a regular visitor to the famous Nizamuddin Dargah during her stay in Delhi from 1975 to 1981 following the assassination of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

The Prime Minister will also visit the Ajmer Sharif Dargah in Rajasthan on his last day on India visit on September 8.

The Bangladeshi PM had visited Ajmer Sharif in 2017 and before that in 2010 when she became the prime minister for the second time.

Earlier, the Bangladesh Premier arrived in the Palam Airport in New Delhi at around 11:40 am local time today where India rolled out the red carpet to welcome Sheikh Hasina.

On her first day of India visit, Indian external affairs minister Dr S. Jaishankar paid a call on the Bangladesh premier at summit room of her Place of Residence, ITC Maurya Hotel this afternoon.

Later, Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani paid a courtesy call on Sheikh Hasina on the same venue.

The Premier will join a reception-cum-dinner to be hosted by Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Muhammad Imran and Mrs Zakia Hasnat Imran this evening.

On the second day of her India visit on September 6, Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to have bilateral talks and a one-to-one meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Hyderabad House.

She will be formally received by her Indian counterpart while a ceremonial guard of honour will be accorded to her there.

After holding the bilateral talks, several MoUs (Memorandum of Understandings) are likely to be signed between the two neighbouring countries while a press statement will be issued later.

Sheikh Hasina later will join a luncheon to be hosted in her honour by the Indian premier.

The same day, Sheikh Hasina is expected to have separate courtesy calls on Indian President Droupadi Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar.

She is scheduled to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi at Raj Ghat on September 6.

The next day Minister for Development of North Eastern Region of India G. Kishan Reddy and Nobel laureate Kailash Shatyarthi will make separate calls on her.

She is scheduled to have a call on family members of former Indian president Pranab Mukherjee that day.

On September 7, the Bangladesh premier is expected to address a meeting with top business leaders and a ceremony for awarding “Mujib Scholarship” to direct descendants of soldiers, officers of the defence forces of India, who were martyred or critically wounded during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971.

The prime minister is scheduled to visit Khwaja Gharib Nawaz Dargah Sharif, Ajmer (Ajmer Sharif Dargah) in Rajasthan before returning to Dhaka on September 8. (BSS)