Indian media have termed the verdict in the maritime delimitation case between Dhaka and New Delhi as a victory for Bangladesh.
Popular Indian daily The Hindu headlined a story “Bangladesh wins maritime dispute with India” while the Economic Times wrote “UN panel rules for Dhaka in Bay of Bengal dispute.”
Kolkata-based The Telegraph published a story headlined “Gone: sea larger than Bengal, UN tribunal awards Dhaka marine chunk.”
Quoting a senior Indian official involved in the case, it wrote the ruling was not good for India and “the award of the area to Bangladesh is irrational in our view, and the arguments used to justify the decision quite frankly border on the absurd.”
The Telegraph writes: “For Bangladesh, the victory is the second of its kind in quick succession – it won a UN arbitration battle against Myanmar in 2012, also over the demarcation of its maritime boundary with that nation.”
Meanwhile, several political leaders in Bangladesh said the verdict of the Permanent Court of Arbitration had gone in favour of India and Bangladesh had received less than what it deserved.
On July 7, the court awarded Bangladesh 19,467 square kilometres of area out of the total disputed area of 25,602 sq-km in the Bay of Bengal delimitation case.
The Awami League-led government had taken the political decision, just after assuming power in 2009, to resolve the maritime dispute with India through an international court as Dhaka and New Delhi could not come to a solution in the past 40 years. It filed a case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration on October 8, 2009.
Bangladesh finally won more than 118,813 sq-km waters comprising territorial sea and an exclusive economic zone extending out to 354 nautical miles.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
