The global outrage over the anti-Hindu pogrom that took place in Bangladesh during Durga Puja in October has subsided. But the minority Hindus are now back to facing low-level, scattered, everyday violence, which is behind their gradual exodus from the country. Two such cases have come to light, one of them instigated by a ruling Awami League leader.
On December 9, a mob of 60-70 people led by Zakir Sheikh, Ismail Hawlader, Moinul Sikder, attacked a Hindu household belonging to a gardener in Laukathi Bazar, Patuakhali district. They vandalized three houses and looted money and gold ornaments. The assailants also physically assaulted the family members and threatened them to leave the country.
Earlier, a similar incident of an attack on a Hindu family and ransacking their house had occurred on November 16, in Chabala Union’s Tentulia village in Kaligunj Upazila of Lalmonirhat district. Tapan Chandra Roy (32), s/o Upendra Nath Barman, his wife Nayan Rani Roy (24) and his mother Shanti Bala (50) were severely injured in the attack and got admitted to the Lalmonirhat Sadar Hospital for treatment.
Though the ruling Bangladesh Awami League projects itself as a ‘pro-minority’ political party, this attack was prompted by a local leader of the party. “My husband refused to support the local Awami League party’s Chairman candidate Mijanur Rahman Miju. Enraged by my husband’s refusal, Miju (Mijanur Rahman Miju) and his people started beating up my husband. When I and my mother-in-law rushed to defend him, they assaulted us as well,” said Nayan Rani Roy.
Speaking to The Daily Star, Tapan Roy said, “They battered me badly. I had only said I will work for the candidate I like. In reaction, directed by Mijanur Rahman Miju, his people stormed into my house vandalising the boundary walls and the door. They also used vulgar expletives on us and kept threatening us to leave the village. Out of their fear, we didn’t get ourselves admitted in the local Kaligunj Upazila Hospital, but are getting treated in the Lalmonirhat Sadar Hospital.”
But Mijnur has rubbished all allegations levelled against him. While speaking to the media, he said, “Tapan tried to stop me when I was campaigning for the election for the Chairman position. At this, my supporters had a verbal spat with him. There was no physical assault of vandalism involved.” He also alleged that his political opponents are using Tapan and his family against him.
The Officer-in-Charge of the Kaligunj Police Station has informed The Daily Star that Tapan’s family had lodged a written complaint in this matter.
Bangladesh’s Constitution establishes Islam as the state religion. Religious minorities, with Hindus forming the largest minority group, are religiously persecuted and institutionally discriminated. The result shows in the population of Hindus which has been steadily declining from 13.5% after the country was formed in 1971, to under 9% as per the last census in 2011.
As per research concluded in 2016 by Professor Abul Barakat of Dhaka University, at the ongoing rate of exodus (2.3 lakhs per year) there will be no Hindus left in Bangladesh after 30 years (2046).
Targeted attacks on Hindus to grab their land, desecrate their temples, and sexually assault their women are an everyday occurrence in Bangladesh. As per statistics compiled by Bangladesh Jatiya Hindu Mohajote in Jan 2021, even despite the pandemic lockdowns, atrocities against Bangladeshi Hindus rose 29% in 2020 with over 40,000 incidents logged – 149 killed, 53 raped, 7,036 injured, 2623 forcibly converted, 370 murtis vandalised, 2125 Hindu families either evicted or forced to leave the country (not counting those who were threatened to leave but have resisted till now), 1055 land grabbing cases etc.
The days of Hindus in Bangladesh are numbered. They have been & will be systematically traumatized to get converted to Muslim. Hindu women are raped & killed. Hindu properties are vandalized and looted. Hindu men are brutally killed, their limbs chopped and decapitated. Long before India’s partition, Hindus had been tortured, killed, and driven out of their agricultural land by Bangladeshi Mulims there. Pogrom of the Hindus by Muslims at Noakhali during partition is one of the bloodiest carnage written in human history. No international organization or any country stood by their side and came to help and even when in 1971 Bangladesh was born Rajakars raped and killedhundreds of thousands of Hindu women, they forcibly dragged Hindu women out of their houses and handed them over to ruthless & vicious Pak soldiers to satiate their lust! Hundreds of thousands of Hindu families were massacred and destroyed this way. Only a lucky few managed to escape to India to survive with those nightmares.