Author: Press Trust Of India
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: February 20, 2003
URL: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=4350
Thousands of Hindu migrants are
crossing the Indo-Bangladesh border near Habra - risking their lives, leaving
everything including their near and dear ones behind - to save themselves
from large-scale attacks on minorities in Bangladesh.
"The true picture is not known to
the outside world. It is a free for all so far it goes to torturing minority
Hindus. Women and property are the prime targets - hundreds of Hindu women
are hospitalised, many were killed after being raped," Bidhu Bhusan Das,
one of the migrants from Barishal, who fled leaving behind his relatives
said.
The local municipality pretends
ignorance as do the police and the administration, but the migrants are
moving in daily via Hakimpur, Bongaon (Petrapole) borders and dispersing
to districts like Bardhaman and Midnapore - even to far off places like
the Andamans via Kolkata.
"It is a war against the Hindus.
Awami League could not protect us, even worse, they are now joining hands
with Bangladesh Nationalist Party cadres with the sole aim to butcher Hindu
minorities," a group of migrants from Barishal and Bhola districts of Bangladesh,
who have taken shelter in this town, 12 km from the Hakimpur border, said.
The situation after the October
1 elections, the migrants said, "are worse than that in 1992", when the
Babri Masjid demolition in India led to communal tension in the neighbouring
country.
