Context: Recently, St Martin’s Island of Bangladesh was in controversy after the resignation of Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

• According to the alleged statement, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Hasina said she could have continued to remain in power if she had given Bangladesh’s “St Martin’s Island and Bay of Bengal to America”.

About St Martin’s Island

• It is located in the northeastern region of the Bay of Bengal, close to the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

• It is nine kilometres away from the southern tip of Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf peninsula.

• Geography: It is mostly flat and sits at an elevation of 3.6 metres above the mean sea level. It is Bangladesh’s only coral island — there are reefs from 10-15 km to the west-northwest — and is also a breeding ground for sea turtles.

What is the history of the island?

• The island was once part of the Teknaf peninsula (around 5,000 years ago) but gradually got submerged into the sea.

• Around 450 years ago, the southern suburbs of present-day St Martin’s Island resurfaced — the northern and rest of the parts of the island rose above sea level in the following 100 years.

• The Arab merchants were among the first ones to settle on the island. They began to arrive there in the 18th Century.

• The merchants initially named the island “Jazira” (meaning “the island” or “the peninsula”) and later changed it to “Narikel Jinjira” or “Coconut Island”.

• In 1900, British India annexed the island during a land survey. By then, some fishermen had settled on the island — they were either Bengali or from the Rakhine community (who were based in present-day Myanmar).

• During the British occupation, the island came to be known as St Martin’s Island, named after then Deputy Commissioner of Chittagong Martin.