An appeal to Bangladesh Premier Sheikh Hasina to protect Hindu and Buddhist minority people.

Bengali Hindu Refugee organisations appeal to Bangladesh Premier Sheikh Hasina to protect minority Hindus and Buddhists from the Islamic persecution in that country.

Seemana Das | HENB | New Delhi | Sept 7, 2022:: After being denied with the Sit-in-Protest as scheduled at Jantar Mantar on 6th Sept; the Prabashi Bangyio Samaj, Delhi-NCR and All India Refugee Front, Kolkata tried to conduct a Press Meet at Bangla Bazar in the capital where Delhi Police tried to dismantle the same and the agitated participants there took to the street to register their concern about the severe Hindu persecution even in the rule of Awami League Govt there in Bangladesh led by PM Sheikh Hasina.

During her four day (5-8 Sept, 2022) visit in India, the Bengali Hindu Refugee Organisations tried to appeal for the minority people in Bangladesh being deprived from Human Rights under the attacks of fundamental Jihadi elements and fanatic Muslim people.

As the BJP Govt in India led by PM Nraendra Modi and Awami League Govt led by Shiekh Hasina in Bangladesh, both are reluctant to address the plight of the persecuted minority people in Bangladesh, the rights organisations in India are gagged  with the police excesses.

Unfortunately, authority of both the countries want to suppress the facts of unbearable torture, murder, eviction, arson, plunder, rape on Hindu minorities in Islamic Bangladesh under Jihadi perpetration. Shame on Modi and Shame on Hasina as not a single discussion is related to #HinduLivesMatter in Bangladesh.

Even then, the Prabashi Bangyio Samaj (PBS), Delhi-NCR and All India Refugee Front (AIRF), Kolkata wrote a letter to Bangladesh Premier Sheikh Hasian through Bangladesh High Commission in Delhi to get justice in favour of Hindu-Buddhist minority people there.

APPEAL TO MS SHEIKH HASINA, PRIME MINISTER OF BANGLADESH

Prabashi Bangyio Samaj, Delhi-NCR, All India Refugee Front, Kolkata and other Bengali and Refugee Organisations

To

Ms Sheikh Hasina

Prime Minister

Peoples Republic of Bangladesh

Through:

Hon’ble High Commissioner

Peoples Republic of Bangladesh

New Delhi

Date: 6 Semptember 2022

Hon’ble Ms Sheikh Hasina,

We welcome you in India during your visit from 5 – 8 September 2022.

We are appealing from a protest sit in at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi on 6 September 2022.

We also take this opportunity to place our demands to you and demand your personal assurance to stop the continuous atrocities on the minority Hindus and Buddhists of Bangladesh.

You are coming when Durga Puja season, the biggest festival of the Hindu Bengalis have just started. And as usual the attacks on Hindu gods and goddesses and temples have also started. The attack on Hindus and their religious institutions in Bangladesh is nothing new. In Bangladesh, attacks on temples, demolition of idols (Pratima), forcible possession of temple and cremation ground have become a routine affair and happen throughout the year, every year. Reports of these incidents often appear in local media, in some cases complaints go to court. But nothing happens. The cycle repeats . Especially, the attack on Durga idols (Pratima) begins a few months before Durga Puja every year and has become a permanent feature.

Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, a well-known eminent educationist and writer of Bangladesh, has written last year in his social media post: “When the time of Durga Puja comes, the work of making of Durga idols begins all over the country, I feel a kind of suppressed turmoil within myself. I inevitably get the news that the idols are being demolished here and there in the country. When the puja begins, I hold my breath, those who are ready to bomb the Sholakia Eid gathering are capable of doing devastation at the puja ceremony too. When everything (Puja) is over, I breathe a sigh of relief”. This is a true description of the lives of Hindus in Bangladesh.

During Durga Puja festival last year 2021, the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council presented a brief picture of the communal attack that took place from the Mahastami day (October 13) to 1 November 2021. According to their information, 17 temples/puja mandaps, 301settlements and businesses in 27districts and a total of 5 people were killed.

Bangladesh’s respected human rights organization, Law and Arbitration Centre (Ain O Salish Kendra – ASK), informed there had been 3,679 attacks on Hindu communities in Bangladesh in the last nine years. Of these, 1,559 houses were vandalized and set on fire. During this period, 442 Hindu businesses were attacked, vandalized and set on fire. There have been 1,678 incidents of vandalism and arson in idols, puja pandals and temples. ASK says 862 Hindus were injured in the attacks and eleven persons were killed.

Now Puja season is coming and already there have been a number of incidents of damaging Durga idols. According to Minority Rights groups, as many as 79 Hindus have been killed in Bangladesh in the last six months. In the last six months alone, there have been 501 organised attacks on Hindus, 56 temples were attacked and 50 idol thefts. In addition, 13 Hindu community members were raped, 10 were gang-raped, three were killed after the rape, 19 rape attempts, 95 were converted, 21 were tried for conversion and 63 incidents of hurting religious sentiments happened in the country. Hindu teachers are being beaten and harassed with shoe garlands around their necks. In Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gopalganj, Narail, Savar and other places, one incident after another is happening non-stop. Bangladesh government remains a mute spectator only. Even the cases are filed by police, no conviction for communal harassment by Muslims taken place in last 50 years. In the Chittagong Hill Tract area Buddhist Chakma community is also continuously harassed, attacked and conversion is going on. The recent census of Bangladesh shows that percent of Hindu population has gone further down to 7 percent only.

We want to remind Ms Sheikh Hasina that Bangladesh was created on the blood of thousands of Indian soldiers and 2.5 million lives of the Bengali Hindus. So we insist respectfully that You should –

1)      Stop all atrocities on Hindu Buddhists communities

2)      Arrest and convict all the criminals related to communal violence

3)      Stop harassing Hindus in the name false blasphemy cases.

4)      Apologise to all Hindu teachers and withdraw all false cases.

5)      Implement Chittagong Hill treaty immediately

6)      Stop the anti Hindu campaign in Islamic Waz and Mehfil

Yours respectfully

Mr A K Pal, Mr Padmanava Lahiri,  PBS, Delhi – 981162588

Dr Mohit Ray, Mr Sujit Sikdar, AIRF, Kolkata – 9831085215

…

A source of AIRF in Kolkata confirmed that the above letter to Sheikh Hasina through BD High Commission in Dehi was sent by email yesterday.