A verbal instruction was given on Friday to remove the photo of President Md. Sahabuddin from Bangladesh's diplomatic missions abroad. However, many missions gradually and quietly removed the president's photo. Since August 5, most missions have been following the 'zero portrait policy', where no photo of the president or former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been kept.

No one from the Foreign Ministry wanted to comment publicly on the matter. However, several diplomats said that after the August change, in addition to removing Sheikh Hasina's photo, many missions also removed the president's photo to avoid trouble. Later, the matter became clearer when the president's photo was also removed from the Foreign Ministry. Since some missions still have the president's photo, senior diplomats have been given the responsibility of removing it.

According to BBC Bangla, following the instruction, the president's photo in the High Commissioner's room of the London High Commission was removed on Friday night. There have also been reports of the removal of the president's portrait from at least five embassies in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia.

An official at the Colombo embassy said that they had removed the portraits of President Shahabuddin, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman after August 5. Therefore, there was no need to remove the new portraits.

The Bangladesh embassy in Tehran had earlier removed the portraits of the president and the chief advisor. However, two portraits were removed from there too on Thursday.