Widespread violence has broken out against the minority Hindus of Bangladesh. Reports of Durga Puja mandaps being demolished and Hindus being attacked are pouring in from several parts of Chittagong division. At least 2 Hindus have died in these attacks, it is claimed.

Atleast 9 mandaps were demolished in Comilla, and the Maa Durga murti vandalized. Apart from this, reports of murtis being vandalised in Cox’s Bazar, Chandpur and Chittagong are also coming.

As per Advocate Dr. Gobinda Chandra Pramanik, Secretary General of the Bangladesh Jatio Hindu Mohajote (Bangladesh National Grand Alliance), the murti desecration has now developed into a full blown anti-Hindu pogrom in several areas, with attacks on 150 families in Shilpara, Cox’s Bazar, and widespread vandalism & looting in Hatiya, Noakhali, molestation of women and 2 people found dead in Chandpur.

One of those killed while guarding a puja mandap is reported to be Manik Saha, publicity secretary of Chandpur district branch of Bangladesh National Hindu Youth Grand Alliance. Several others are seriously injured.

The Bangladesh Hindu Unity Council has appealed for the Bangladesh government to provide immediate security to Hindus celebrating their most important festival. They tweeted how Hindus have been forced to do visarjan of the devi on the 8th day of Navratri, instead of the tenth day when it is traditionally done –

13 October 2021. A scandalous day in the history of Bangladesh. Many puja mandapas have been vandalized, Pratima Bisarjan in the Day of Austomi. Hindus are now guarding the puja mandapa.the whole world is silent today. May maa Durga bless all the Hindus of the world.Never Forgive.

As the articulate Twitter handle Stories of Bengali Hindus, which has been doing a great service in bringing out forgotten stories of Bengali Hindus, put it –

Possibly the darkest Durga Puja we’ve witnessed so far As usual nobody cares to listen to the victims, nobody acknowledges the issues, whitewashing goes on and no matter how many similar chapters of history we point out, no lessons are learnt and no actions are taken

1946 – Lakshmi Puja, Noakhali 1950 – Maha Shivaratri, Sitakunda 1964 – Ashtami Snan, Langalbandh 1971 – Keertan at Sri Angan Faridpur, Kaivalyadham Chittagong & many other unaccounted events 2021 – Durga Puja, Comilla etc. Everyone’s silence is enabling a continuous genocide

The hashtag #DurgaPuja4All is a cruel joke. Many accounts who’ve used that hashtag in a serious manner have only contributed to the whitewashing of the yearly fair of vandalisation and attacks against our people. We don’t recall a single year of having Pujo without being attacked

False blasphemy charge – again

The favorite tool of Islamists – whether in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Bharat – to attack Hindus and start rioting is the ‘blasphemy’ charge. Here again, it is believed to be an anti-Hindu Muslim fanatic who secretly placed a Quran at the feet of a Hanuman murti at the Durga puja pandal in Comilla that provided the excuse to attack Hindus in the name of hurting Muslim sentiments.

A Muslim resident who stays close the mandapa (pandal) where this happened has apparently testified on how the plan was carried out to whip up Muslims.

Every year, around the time of Durga Puja and Diwali, such controversies are created and then used as an excuse to target Hindus. In 2016, hundreds of Hindu homes and temples in Brahmanbaria district (which falls in the same Chittagong division of eastern Bangladesh) were targeted after a ‘blasphemous’ Facebook post appeared from the account of a poor Hindu fisherman Rasraj Das. In 2012, Buddhists were attacked in Cox’s Bazar’s Ramu after another Facebook post was faked.

Last November, 10 Hindu households were vandalized and torched in Comilla district after a man allegedly showed support on Facebook (FB) for France and French President Macron. Hindu college students are routinely arrested and expelled the moment someone files a complaint of a ‘blasphemous social media post’ against them.

In March, when Hefazat-e-Islam wanted to hold protests against PM Modi’s visit to Bangladesh, another ‘blasphempous’ post by one Jhumon Das provided the excuse to attack, loot and vandalize around 100 Hindu homes in Shalla, Sunamganj district.

Just last month, Gouranga Chandra Dey was arrested in Bhola district after a screenshot of an alleged ‘blasphemous’ FB messenger chat involving him went viral. His family was placed under house arrest, his shops were shut and Hindus in the area were left fearing the worst.

In the words of @storiesofBHs –

A similar situation has yet again happened in Comilla this day on Maha ashtami. Hindus in Comilla have been advised to not go out in order to avoid getting harmed or killed. Now you know why Hindus have no other choice but to leave their land, yearly.

Every year a case where Hindus have allegedly insulted the majority community occurs, every time a consequent riot happens. Why would Hindus even dare to hold Qur’an in a country where members of minority communities get jailed under Digital Security Act?

No response from Bharat?

Being the homeland of Hindus, one would expect the Government of Bharat to at least register a protest at this mass attack on Hindus in a neighboring country with which we boast of having ‘friendly relations’. But such is the poisonous chokehold of Nehruvian secularism that even the much reviled ‘Hindu nationalist’ government and our Ministry of External Affairs has yet to utter a word.

The double standards are all too glaring.

Bharat’s mainstream English-language media is more interested in a star kid’s arrest on drug charges, and politics over the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, rather than such life-or-death issues for Hindus.

Many are also questioning why the CAA law, introduced to provide some relief to beleaguered Hindu refugees who have suffered exactly this sort of religious persecution, is still in cold storage with no rules notified almost 2 years after it was passed with much fanfare.

But CAA is just a relief measure. The only solution is a Hindu Dharmic rashtra which is committed to protect and preserve Hindu Dharma and practitioners of all Dharmic traditions. Sheikh Hasina might be a better bet for ‘secular India’, but for Hindus and Dharmic denizens of Bharat, she is just another ruler of an Islamic nation who will throw her Hindu citizens to Islamist mobs as part of her electoral calculus.

Have no doubt, what we are witnessing in Bangladesh is state-sanctioned religious-ethnic cleansing of Hindus, the same as we witnessed in West Bengal after May 2.