Claim: Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser, has said that he will soon free the Seven Sisters, the seven northeastern states from India’s clutches.
Conclusion: The claim is false. Muhammad Yunus did not make any such statement, and there are no credible reports to support it. While Yunus has previously commented on the Seven Sisters, he did not say anything about freeing them from India.
Rating: Totally False — 
Recently, a viral post has claimed that Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser has commented on freeing the Seven Sisters from India. Facebook user ‘MdAbdul Kaium’ made such a claim with the caption in Bengali: “সেভেন সিস্টার্স অর্থাৎ ভারতের ৭টি রাজ্য আমাদের, এগুলো অচিরেই ভারতের কবল থেকে মুক্ত করবো ডক্টর ইউনুস!” In English this reads : “The Seven Sisters, that is, the 7 states of India, are ours, we will soon free them from India’s clutches, Dr. Yunus!” An image is attached of Yunus with the same caption in Bengali, implying that it is a quote or words spoken by him. View the post below –
FACT CHECK
DigitEYE India investigated the claim and found it to be false. There are no direct statements or quotes suggesting that Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser, has spoken about freeing the Seven Sisters from India’s clutches. While he has previously spoken about the Seven Sisters, which are the seven northeastern states of India, he did not make any comment about liberating them from India.
Details:
We first conducted a web search with the phrase “Yunus freeing Seven Sisters from India’s clutches” to learn about the claim. However, we did not find any press release, video clip or report that proves Muhammad Yunus has made such a statement. Extensive searches of news archives, official transcripts and Yunus’s comment on the Seven Sisters did not yield any results.
Following this, we began checking various comments which Muhammad Yunus has made pertaining to the Seven Sisters. According to a report published by NDTV on August 6, 2024, Yunus said, “If you destabilise Bangladesh, it will spill over all around Bangladesh, including Myanmar and seven sisters in West Bengal everywhere,” Yunus further added that “It will be a volcanic eruption everywhere around us and in Myanmar… and it would be a bigger problem because a million Rohingyas are in here,” below view a section of the report:
Following this, we came across an article published by The Times of India that reported Muhammad Yunus’s remarks in March during his 4-day visit to China. During the discussion, Muhammad Yunus positioned Bangladesh as a maritime gateway for the seven northeastern landlocked regions of India and invited Chinese investment in ports such as Mongla to facilitate regional trade.
According to the report, Yunus stated that “seven sisters … they are landlocked country, landlocked region of India. They have no way to reach out to the ocean,” adding that “We are the only guardian of the ocean for all this region. So this opens up a huge possibility. So this could be an extension of the Chinese economy.” View this section from the report below –
However in April 2025, Khalilur Rahman, the High Representative to Yunus defended Yunus’s comments and said that “his [Yunus] remarks on India’s Northeast misinterpreted.’ As per another report by The Times of India, Rahman said that Yunus “made the statement with honest intentions. If people interpret it differently, we cannot prevent it,” The Daily Star has also written about Rahman defending these statements which can be read here.
Lastly, as per a report by The Print published on May 14, 2025, Yunus reiterated cooperation themes during diplomatic engagements with Indira Rana, Deputy Speaker of Nepal’s House of Representatives. Yunus declared that there “should be an integrated economic plan for Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and the Seven Sisters. We have more to gain together than apart.” The report further mentions how he “appears to have changed tack now- calling for a unified cross-border economic integration plan” unlike his earlier“landlocked” comments about Seven Sisters back in March 2025 during China visit.
However, Yunus’s remarks on the Northeast had drawn sharp criticism in India, given their geopolitical implications. India’s Minister of External Affairs, Dr. S. Jaishankar, responded by emphasizing the strategic importance of the Northeast, calling it a connectivity hub for (BIMSTEC), a grouping that includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
View a section from the report below –
However, Yunus statements as mentioned in various reports do not imply that he wanted ‘The Seven Sisters’, the seven northeastern states of India, are theirs, and soon they will be freed from India’s clutches, and also no hint of territorial claims were found in his comments.
Thus, the claim is false.
