Bangladesh needed to be clearly told that New Delhi would respond firmly if such rhetoric continued.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said India would not stay quiet for long if leaders in Bangladesh continued to issue threats about severing the north eastern region from the rest of the country.
Sarma said that repeated remarks from across the border suggesting the North East should be merged with or isolated from India revealed a 'dangerous and misguided way of thinking'.
For the past year, there have been statements from Bangladesh talking about absorbing the North East. Even entertaining such an idea is completely unacceptable,' Sarma told reporters on the sidelines of a function in Guwahati.
Emphasising India's strength, Sarma said the neighbouring country should remember that India is a major global power.
Bangladesh needed to be clearly told that New Delhi would respond firmly if such rhetoric continued. 'We cannot keep extending help while such hostile thinking is directed at India,' he said.
The Assam chief minister was reacting to comments made a day earlier by Hasnat Abdullah, a leader of Bangladesh's newly formed National Citizen Party, who suggested that India's eight north eastern states should be cut off from the mainland.
Abdullah warned that if India continued to support people who, according to him, undermined Bangladesh's sovereignty and human rights, Dhaka could retaliate by backing separatist forces in India and isolating the north east.
He also alleged that India was backing supporters of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina to destabilise the current regime.
Similar remarks have been made earlier by other Bangladeshi leaders.
Earlier this year, Mohammed Yunus, chief adviser of Bangladesh's interim government, had pointed out that India's north eastern states had no direct access to the sea and suggested that Bangladesh controlled their maritime access.
In recent months, the focus of such comments shifted to the Siliguri Corridor -- the narrow stretch of land in West Bengal, often referred to as 'Chicken's Neck', that connects the north east to the rest of India.
Responding to these statements, Sarma said Bangladesh should first worry about its own strategic vulnerabilities instead of issuing threats.
He referred to two narrow corridors affecting Bangladesh -- one stretching about 80 km from Dakshin Dinajpur in West Bengal to the South West Garo Hills in Meghalaya, and another being the 28 km-long Chittagong Corridor linking South Tripura to the Bay of Bengal.
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff
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