Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen cancelled hisvisit to India on Thursday hours before he was to land in the national capital to participate in Delhi Dialogue, an event hosted by the foreign ministry.

The move comes a day after Parliament cleared a law to grant citizenship to religious minorities from three Muslim-majority countries including Bangladesh on grounds that they were being persecuted.

“The visit has been put off for now… No fresh dates have been announced for visit,” a person familiar with the development said.

Dhaka hasn’t gone public with the reasons for the sudden change in the foreign minister’s plans. But there have been indications about the discomfort in Bangladesh over the past few days about the government’s justification to liberalise the citizenship law for religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

“What they are saying in regards to torture on Hindus is unwarranted as well as untrue,” the foreign minister told Dhaka Tribune on Tuesday.

He added: “There are very few countries in the world wherecommunal harmony is as good as in Bangladesh. We have no minorities. We are allequal. If he [Amit Shah] stayed in Bangladesh for a few months, he would seethe exemplary communal harmony in our country.”

Bangladesh frequently figures in India’s politicaldiscourse, particularly in context of illegal immigration. The ruling BharatiyaJanata Party has pledged to expel all infiltrators, a term that has usuallybeen used by the party to refer to illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, once theNational Register of Citizens is put in place

“Should we throw out all infiltrators,” Home Minister AmitShah asked at an election rally in tribal Jharkhand, before setting a 2024deadline for himself to deliver on this election promise.