Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Wednesday signed the condolence book opened at the Indian High Commission in Dhaka in memory of former President Pranab Mukherjee.
The High Commission also opened a digital condolence book - https://www.hcidhaka.gov.in/condolence_reg - for those willing to pay respect to the 13th President of India who died on Monday.
Bangladesh observed one-day mourning on Wednesday to pay respect to the ‘true friend’. The national flag was at half-mast.
Mukherjee was the first MP who stood up in the Indian parliament for the cause of Bangladesh in the 1971 war against Pakistan. On June 15, he suggested India recognise the new Bangladesh government formed in exile.
The foreign minister recalled his memories with Mukherjee since 1973 when they first met, and said with his death, Bangladesh lost a “true friend”.
“He is our pride and the entire Bangali nation is indebted to him,” the foreign minister wrote about the first Bengali President of India.
Mukherjee took care of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina when she was in exile in New Delhi after 1975 when her father, founding father of Bangladesh Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was killed along with the other family members on August 15.
Hasina and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana survived as they were in Germany then.
The Prime Minister, through Bangladesh High Commissioner in New Delhi Muhammad Imran, on Tuesday paid her last respects to Mukherjee.
He was laid to rest with full military honours on Tuesday.
