Author: United News of India
Publication: The Statesman
Date: October 9, 2001
Religious minority groups today
staged angry protests against torture and loot allegedly by "terrorists
backed by Bangladesh Nationalist Party-Jamaat alliance" that won the general
elections in Bangladesh.
Members of the minorities are generally
considered supporters of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of the Awami
League that lost the poll.
Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian
Oikya Parishad (BHBCOP) staged a protest rally here and demanded an immediate
end to attacks on minorities. The BHBCOP leaders urged the minorities to
be united in waging a tough movement to protect themselves from communal
attacks. They blamed the caretaker government's chief advisor Latifur Rahman
for his failure in tackling pre- and post-election attacks on them.
"It's the chief advisor for whom
we are being attacked. He, will be brought to justice soon for patronising
the attackers," Prof Lolit Mohon Nath of the BHBCOP told the rally.
He said they had already talked
to the Prime Minister-elect Begum Khaleda Zia over the issue and will meet
President Shahabuddin Ahmed within a day or two for taking immediate steps
to stop the attacks.
"We are now living in a horrible
situation. We were repressed in 1971 too and now the same thing happening
to us as a so-called former Chief Justice has been at the peak of power,"
said BHBCOP presidium member Srimat Shumangal Mahathero. Meanwhile, the
Bangladesh government today refrained from making any specific comments
on the US air raids in Afghanistan in hunt for the suspects of the 11 September
devastating attacks on America even as the Islamic Jamaat-e-Islami condemned
the attacks.
