Author:
Publication: Communalism Combat
Date: July 2002
URL: http://www.sabrang.com/cc/current/neigh1.htm
Hindus and other religious minorities
in Bangladesh were the target of widespread violence before during and
after the general elections in October last year, in the Bangla Nationalist
Party and Jamaat-e-Islami led alliance's successful bid to grab power.
Perceived as supporters of the 'pro-minority' Awami League, a large number
of Bangla Hindus were killed, women raped and their property looted or
destroyed, leading to their distress migration to India. Independent human
rights groups, women's organisations, other civil society actors and much
of the press did a commendable job in highlighting atrocities against the
country's minorities. But the chief beneficiary of minority votes, the
Awami League, was content to shed crocodile tears only after the orgy of
loot, killing and rape was over. (See CC, December 2001, cover story).
A fresh round of violence in recent
months indicates that the minorities of Bangladesh are being targeted with
a vengeance yet again. In early April, a report in the Far Eastern Economic
Review described the country under the new political dispensation as a
"cocoon of terror." As was only to be expected, the Review report was accused
of being 'biased' and 'prejudiced.' But within days of the ban on the April
4, 2002 issue of the magazine, a Buddhist monk and a Hindu priest were
killed in their monastery at Hingala (Raozan PS, Chittagong district) and
a temple at Manikchhari (Khagrachari district) respectively. Yet another
Buddhist monk, also in the Raozan area survived only because locals came
to his rescue.
Following a field investigation
and interviews with victims, Rabindra Ghosh, an advocate and the Dhaka-based
country co-ordinator of the global organisation Human Rights Congress of
Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM) reported gang rape of Hindu women and torture
of men in Palagram village in Chittagong district in separate incidents
on May 8 and May 14. In the assault on the night of May 14 by an armed
group whom the victims described as "Islamic terrorists". "After they raped
the women of the household (Hore family), miscreants threatened to slaughter
the head of the household if all the belongings are not given. About 40,000
Taka worth jewellery and cash were stored in a steel Almery which was pushed
upon Mr. Hore (72) until he agreed to hand over the belongings to the miscreants,"
says Ghosh's report (www.hrcbm.org).
In an earlier incident on May 8
in the same village, an armed group of about 25-30 miscreants mercilessly
thrashed Shri Pradiwpananda Brahmachari, principal of the local ashram,
some of the miscreants gang-raped two young girls (aged 12 and 16) of the
local Dey family and severely beat up their mother. "I asked them why they
did not report this to local police, they flatly told me if they have done
so justice will not be attained, miscreants will never be arrested instead,
they will be subject to more torture and perhaps brutal slaughtering,"
Ghosh reported. The report also said that in what appears to be a new trend,
several orphanages being run by and for members from the minority communities
are being targeted.
Following a second field investigation
and video-taped interviews with victims and police officials in Satkhira
district on June 21 and 22, Ghosh has documented serious incidents of persecution
of Hindu families. In one of these incidents, a local MP from the ruling
BNP party, Md. Habibur Islam Habib is charged with terrorising a Chatterjee
family in a brazen attempt to force her to leave the country and grab the
substantial land they own. In the second incident at village Fatepur, about
14 kms from Satkhira town, Muslem Ali Gazi, a local Jamaat-e- Islami leader
is accused of torturing a local Sadar family. "The mother and son of the
Sadar family were unclothed and dragged out of their house tied up with
rope and beaten up on the way to the torture cell of the accused Jamaat-e-Islami
leader".
And on July 1, the HRCBM website
sent out an action alert, stating that Ghosh, an advocate at the apex court,
was abused and attacked by some pro-BNP advocates "with the help of some
terrorists" inside the Supreme Court's Bar Association Hall at Dhaka while
a meeting was in progress. The video-tapes and other documentary evidence
collected by him during the Satkhira investigation were also snatched away
from him.
Meanwhile, newspapers have reported
that fanatics from the border township of Haluaghat have been inciting
Muslims over the public address system to kill local Christians to avenge
the massacre of Palestinians in Israel.
At a meeting of the Aid Bangladesh
Consortium in March, the donor countries had warned that they would be
forced to suspend aid to the country unless the rapidly deteriorating law
and order situation is brought under control. But the continuing targeting
of Hindus, Christians and Buddhists in different parts of the country since
then leave little room for optimism.
