'Aren't We Citizens Of Bangladesh': Hindus Across The Border Live In Fear, Share Horror Stories Of Violence

Bangladesh’s new interim government said on Sunday it was working to stop attacks on Hindus, but young professionals like Tanushree Saha said she lives in fear as her uncle’s shop was vandalised by a mob in the northern city of Mymensingh.

Saha, a manager of a handicrafts business in the capital Dhaka, is not alone. According to Hindu activist Rana Dasgupta and other religious rights groups, more than 200 incidents of attacks on minority communities, a figure that also includes Christians and Buddhists, were documented since last week’s political upheaval that led to the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

“The incidents include attacking homes, vandalising shops and places of worship. Women were abused too,” Dasgupta told AFP news agency.

Hindus are the largest minority faith in mostly Muslim Bangladesh. The Bengali Hindu community has faced deadly attacks as they are considered a steadfast support base for Hasina’s party, the Awami League.

Saha was standing with more than 1,000 Hindus at a boisterous rally near Dhaka University last week demanding the country’s new interim government, led by Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, urgently protect members of their faith from harm.

She told AFP that numerous Hindu families came into the crosshairs of their neighbours.

“A group of people vandalised my uncle’s shop. They then beat him and demanded more money to prevent future attacks. They had stolen his cash till and emptied the shelves of his grocery store,” she said.

“Whenever a government falls or a problem arises, we are victimised by opportunists,” she said.

“After the fall of the dictatorship, we were supposed to hold a victory rally, So why are we protesting here? Aren’t we citizens of this country?” student Moumita Adhikari, 20, told AFP at the Hindu protest near Dhaka University.

’Tales Of Terror’

Indian Supreme Court lawyer J Sai Deepak shared several screenshots of messages he said he received through social media apps — where Bengali Hindus from Bangladesh were pleading with him to help draw international attention to their plight.

He shared instances of Bangladeshi Hindus urging him to direct attention towards sexual violence in Sylhet district and attacks on Hindus in Jessore and Khulna districts.

Rights groups within Bangladesh and some Bangladeshi journalists like

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury said they have documented many cases of atrocities against Bengali Hindus in Bangladesh following Sheikh Hasina’s ouster.

In a post on social media, he claimed that certain “Anti-Discrimination Student Movement” leaders were supporting Islamist ideologies and shared a deleted Facebook post by Sarjis Alam, one of the key-convenors of “Anti-Discrimination Student Movement”, which he says is a proof of Islamists hijacking the movement.

He also said in one of his posts that Bangladesh’s Laxmipur, in the aftermath of Hasina’s ouster, witnessed mass robbery. He pointed out that the area near Dhaka city is a Hindu-dominated area and there was no police to take care of law and order.

He said he also documented an incident where a group of 100-150 miscreants attacked a Hindu family’s home in Dhamrai, Dhaka.

Members of minority communities in Bangladesh faced at least 205 incidents of attacks in 52 districts since the fall of the Hasina-led government on August 5, according to two Hindu organisations in the violence-hit nation.

The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council and the Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad on Friday presented the data in an open letter to 84-year-old Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus urging him to take action.

Yunus himself said on Saturday that there was no room for discrimination in the country.

“Our responsibility is to build a new Bangladesh,” he told reporters.

“Don’t differentiate by religion.”

How India Has Responded

Student protest leaders met with the Hindu community on Friday to hear their concerns and pass them on to Yunus’s administration.

The Indian government formed a high-level committee last week to monitor the situation in Bangladesh following reports of targeted violence against minorities and the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government amid deadly protests. The committee will work to ensure the safety of Indian citizens and minority communities in Bangladesh.

The committee, headed by the Additional Director General (ADG) of the Border Security Force (BSF) Eastern Command, will maintain communication with Bangladeshi authorities to address security concerns. Other members of the committee include the Inspector Generals (IG) of BSF’s South Bengal and Tripura Frontiers, as well as representatives from the Land Ports Authority of India (LPAI).

“The Government of India has constituted a Committee to monitor the current situation on the Indo-Bangladesh Border (IBB). The committee will maintain communication channels with their counterpart authorities in Bangladesh to ensure safety of Indian citizens and people belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh,” the government said.