New Delhi: After a strongly-worded protest from Dhaka, India on Friday (August 7) reiterated that it had no role in former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s controversial press interaction in New Delhi and stressed that it did not endorse any remarks made at the event about Bangladesh’s “duly constituted government”.Asked about the Bangladesh foreign ministry’s statement expressing outrage over Hasina’s appearance at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia (FCC), external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the government’s position remained unchanged.“I have already stated the government’s position on the issue before the press conference happened. You would have seen those remarks,” Jaiswal said at the bi-weekly media briefing.The Indian government “had no role to play in what was an event by a private media entity” and “does not endorse anything said at the forum, especially with regard to the duly constituted government of Bangladesh”, he added.The reference to the “duly constituted government of Bangladesh” marked a notable addition to New Delhi’s position.On Tuesday, before the event took place, Jaiswal had said only that the interaction was being organised by “a private media entity”, that the government had “no involvement whatsoever” in it and that it did not endorse the event itself.Three days later, after Hasina had attacked both the former interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus and the current Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government headed by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, India specifically distanced itself from those remarks concerning Bangladesh’s elected government.The response came after Bangladesh’s foreign ministry, which had warned India against allowing the event to go ahead, issued a statement that was viewed as unusually sharp.“Bangladesh is outraged that the absconding convicted genocider Sheikh Hasina was allowed this evening to engage in live interaction with the media in New Delhi where she and her henchmen launched venomous vitriol against the State of Bangladesh and her people,” the ministry said on Wednesday night.The ministry called the programme “an affront to the sovereignty of Bangladesh”. It said allowing Hasina to address the media from Indian territory was “deeply hurtful” to Bangladeshis and “detrimental to the development of harmonious bilateral relations” between the two countries. It also declared that “our nation will never again go back to the dark days of fascism and that Bangladesh will never be a client state”.The statement also renewed Bangladesh’s demand for Hasina’s extradition under the 2013 India-Bangladesh Extradition Treaty, noting that India had yet to respond to repeated requests.A day after issuing the protest, however, Bangladesh’s state minister for foreign affairs, Shama Obaed Islam, struck a more measured tone while maintaining Dhaka’s objections.She said India should be “more sensitive” to the sentiments of the Bangladeshi people and decide whether it would continue to allow Hasina and Awami League leaders to conduct what she described as political activities from Indian territory.At the same time, she emphasised that Dhaka wanted to preserve constructive ties with New Delhi.“We want good relations, in the interest of the people of both countries. But the relationship has to be based on equality, with mutual respect and dignity,” she said, adding that the two countries needed continued dialogue on issues including water sharing, energy cooperation and border management.Even before Bangladesh’s February election, India had begun outreach to the BNP leadership, with external affairs minister S. Jaishankar attending the funeral of former prime minister Khaleda Zia last year. Since the BNP government took office, New Delhi has appointed a BJP leader as its high commissioner to Bangladesh, resumed visa operations and eased some trade restrictions.This contrasted with the strained ties under the interim Yunus administration, which took over after Hasina was ousted. In the latest sign of continuing engagement, Indian high commissioner Dinesh Trivedi is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Rahman on August 10.Hasina, who has been living in India since fleeing Bangladesh after the student-led uprising of August 2024, addressed journalists through an audio link at the FCC on Wednesday in what was her second public event from exile and her first live interaction with the media.In her remarks, she declared that she would return to Bangladesh in December despite the prospect of arrest, rejected the official narrative of the July-August 2024 uprising that ended her 15-year rule, and accused successive governments in Dhaka of dismantling democracy and persecuting political opponents.Her son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, and several former Awami League leaders also participated in the event virtually, with Joy alleging that Bangladesh risked becoming “a second Pakistan” because of the alleged resurgence of Islamist forces.Asked on Thursday about Joy’s remarks, Jaiswal declined to comment directly.“We continue to closely follow developments that happen in our neighbourhood, keeping in mind our national security interest, and whatever measures have to be taken in that regard, we take those to secure our interests,” he said.Jaiswal also fielded a separate question on reports that Bangladesh had approached India for petroleum supplies amid its energy shortages.Saying he did not have an immediate update, he nevertheless noted that India and Bangladesh continued to have “an ongoing relationship in the economic sphere” as well as “in the energy sphere”.