Terming Indian Prime Minister Narandra Modi an honourable guest of the country, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader yesterday said Bangladesh will welcome him at Bangabandhu’s birth centenary celebrations.

The minister also said anti-Modi protests in Dhaka should stop for the sake of the existing bilateral relations between Bangladesh and India.

Quader, also general secretary of the ruling Awami League, also said the government is not embarrassed by such protests of a section of people in the country.

“These people see recent violence in the Indian capital Delhi as a sectarian one and this thought process is not

new in our country. It existed in the past and will remain in future as well. And such protests will not do any damage to the existing relations between the two counties,” he said.

Quader was replying to queries from reporters during a press conference also attended by Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla at his secretariat office in the capital.

A section of university students and some like-minded Islamic political parities are staging protests against recent violence in Delhi that killed at least 42 people and injured more than 200.

The protesters called on the Bangladesh government to cancel the invitation to Narendra Modi, who is scheduled to visit Dhaka on March 17 to attend Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s birth centenary celebrations.

Earlier in the day, Shringla and Quader discussed Indian PM’s forthcoming Dhaka visit.

When asked about India’s concerns on the anti-Modi protests in Bangladesh, Quader responded saying that he had no discussion with Shringla on the issue.

“They (India) think it (Modi’s visit) will be good for all and hope the visit will be well-accepted by Bangladeshi people, in light of India’s contribution during the Liberation War in 1971,” he said.

During the press conference Shringla said, India and Bangladesh together should fight communalism and terrorism.

“We should not be divided over these issues and that’s the message I want to convey to the people in this country,” he said.