Kolkata: The Ministry of External Affairs has responded to the anti-India slander surrounding the floods caused in the eastern part of Bangladesh due to heavy rains in the basin area. The ministry informed that the warning was given to Bangladesh on the afternoon of August 21 as the water level of the river is increasing due to heavy rains. For the past few days, the campaign has been going on in Bangladesh, the districts like Feni, Comilla, Noakhali, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Brahmanbaria and Chittagong have been flooded due to the opening of the Dambur dam of Gomti river in Tripura in the upper catchment. The main fueler of this propaganda is Pinaki Bhattacharya, an exiled ISI sympathizer in Paris. Apart from posting on social media blaming India for the floods, he also called for a siege of the Indian High Commission office on Thursday afternoon. However, the call was not answered.
The Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement that Dambur Dam is located far from the border. 120 km away from the Bangladesh basin of the river. Hydroelectric power is generated in this dam of low height (about 30 meters). Bangladesh also gets 40 MW of electricity generated from Tripura through the grid. Gomti River flows between India and Bangladesh. Both the countries have witnessed the highest rainfall of the year in the last few days. According to the ministry, heavy rainwater in the upper catchment has flooded the basin region of Bangladesh. There are three water level monitoring stations at Amarpur, Sonamura and Sonamura 2 areas in the 120-millimeter stretch of the Gomti river. The water level has been regularly monitored during the heavy rains in the catchment area of Tripura and Bangladesh which started from last 21st. According to the protocol, ‘real time flood’ information is provided to Bangladesh from the Amarpur centre. It was reported on August 21 at 3:00 pm that the water level is rising due to heavy rains. The ministry also informed that the communication with Bangladesh was stopped when the power supply was disconnected at around 6 pm. Extensive efforts are made to provide information through alternative means of communication. It is clear in this statement of the Ministry of External Affairs that the propaganda that is going on in Bangladesh that Dambur Dam water was released without any advance information is false.
Not only Pinaki, but a host of coordinators of the anti-discrimination student movement, from Bangladesh’s Interim Government Information and Broadcasting Adviser Mohammad Nahid Islam, are directly blaming India for the floods. Unreasonably, they claim that flood has been created in Bangladesh by opening the Dambur Dam without prior notice. Not only them, fake pictures and videos are being posted on social media, claiming that along with Dambur Dam, India has also opened Teesta Barrage and Farakkar Dam in Gajldoba. Thus Bangladeshis have been making ludicrous suggestions to their country’s interim government to ‘educate’ India by building a new dam near Farakka. Although the head of the interim government, Mohammad Yunus, said after today’s meeting with the Indian High Commissioner Pranab Verma, what is being circulated on social media is sad. The Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement from New Delhi on Thursday protesting the anti-India lies.
Bangladesh knew that the water level of Dambur Dam was increasing on the afternoon of August 21
