March 7, 2003	Friday	Muharram 3, 1424

DHAKA, March 6: The government of Bangladesh officially admitted on Thursday that a stranger entered the bedroom of the Myanmar foreign minister when he was in Dhaka on a two-day official visit early this week.

“It is an unfortunate incident and is under police investigation,” Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury told reporters admitting media reports about the intrusion in the dead of night into the Myanmar minister’s bedroom.

The Foreign Minister of Myanmar, Win Aung, arrived in Dhaka on Sunday to invite Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to Myanmar and left the next day after completion of the agenda preparatory to the visit.

The Myanmar minister was put up at Padma, a state guest house Dhaka. But at around 2 am on Sunday night, Aung awoke and was shocked by the sight of a man in his bedroom at Padma. After a verbal altercation, he took refuge in the bathroom and called for help.

When security personnel on duty arrived, no sign of the intruder was found and neither was anything reported stolen. Mr Aung left the guesthouse immediately and spent the rest of the night in the Myanmar Embassy.

The foreign secretary told reporters that the Padma state guesthouse where Aung stayed had seen past “incidents” that were hushed up instead of being investigated.

He, however, refuted claims that the episode had led to the Myanmar minister’s departure before schedule on Monday. “Foreign Minister Aung left after completion of the agenda of his visit. The visit was not curtailed,” Chowdhury said.