India will resume issuing tourist visas to Bangladeshi citizens starting Sunday, ending a suspension that lasted for nearly two years, ANI reported.

The announcement was made on Thursday by newly-appointed Indian High Commissioner Dinesh Trivedi in Dhaka.

Tourist visa applications will initially be accepted through five centres in Dhaka, Rajshahi, Chattogram, Sylhet and Khulna, with more centres expected to reopen later, The Daily Star reported.

Urgent medical visas will continue to be issued on humanitarian grounds, Trivedi said.

“We hope that this will further strengthen the people-to-people ties between our two sovereign nations,” he added.

India had suspended the tourist visa services in August 2024 citing security concerns amid widespread anti-government protests that forced Sheikh Hasina, the Bangladeshi prime minister at the time, to flee to India.

Bilateral relations deteriorated further in December 2025 after another unrest that followed the death of Bangladeshi student leader Sharif Osman Bin Hadi. Hadi had been a prominent figure in the July 2024 protests.

Hadi’s death had triggered protests, vandalism and attacks in Bangladesh, including reported attacks on minority communities, which also prompted demonstrations in India. Both countries had summoned each other’s envoys that month to raise concerns over the situation.

Despite the disruptions, India continued operating visa centres in Dhaka, Chattogram, Khulna, Sylhet and Rajshahi for humanitarian cases, particularly medical patients, The Daily Star reported.

It has been issuing more than 1,500 visas a day across all categories except tourist visas.

More than two million Bangladeshi tourists visited India in 2023, according to the Indian Ministry of Tourism.

In February, Bangladesh had resumed issuing all categories of visas to Indian citizens.

The ties between New Delhi and Dhaka had strained during this period until Tarique Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party government came to power in February.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.