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Bangladesh- Another Taliban in making?

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A horror picture of sufferings, persecution and ethnic-cleansing of Hindus and other minorities in moderate Islamic Bangladesh... [warning: some grusome images inside!!]

"The dead, it is said, do not live to tell the tale, but this is not true in ethnic cleansing. The dead do tell the tale; it is the living who are reluctant to speak." -- Horowitz, 2001, p. 224

Islamic fundmentalists murders hindu professorWe now know the Holocaust of the Jews, Hitler’s “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”, which is written in history with human blood. The “Final Solution” of some kind of a different by murderers of different religious belief in a country has been occurring over the last four decades. I am talking about the ethnic cleansing of the Hindus in Bangladesh. And yes, as Horowitz said, listen carefully to every dead human. Each one of them has a tragic story to tell; pay attention and you will hear an unmistakable whisper in their silence, the stories of their suffering and injustice caused to them because of their minority status in a Muslim majority country. Those who are still fortunate enough to live for few more days are in mental wreck so much so that they are all living dead. Today not only the victims, but also the humanity itself cries bitterly for your attention.

Government of Bangladesh has published many Census documents. In 1941, 28.3% of the population was minorities. Out of this, of Hindu was 11.88 million, while 588 thousand was other religious and ethnic minorities, like Buddhist, Christian and animist. As per the 1991 Census, the Muslim majority increased by 219.5%, while the Hindu community increased by 4.5%. If usual increase rate prevailed, the number of the Hindu community would have been 32.5 million in 1991, but the actual figure is 12.5 million. It means twenty million Hindu souls were missing. (Samad, 1998)

Is the Bangladesh Government ready to give a satisfactory explanation, how those twenty million souls had vanished in fifty years?

Did they vanish into thin air like a Houdini magic?

Hindu women gang-raped by Muslims in Bangladesh


No! In the course of Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence, a large number of Hindus were targeted for extermination, like the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, by the Islamist Pakistani government and their Bengali collaborators. Many of those twenty million Hindus were put to permanent rest in mass-graves in unknown places or mass cremated anonymously and unceremoniously or their dead-bodies thrown into the rivers. Many of them were forcefully converted to Islam. Many of their women were brutally raped and reduced to prostitution. And yet, many of them were victims of forced exodus to neighboring India, after Muslim hooligans evicted them penniless from their homes and properties.

Sadly, most of these atrocities had approval of the Government of Bangladesh. The so-called Muslim intellectuals and ‘secular’ politicians deliberately promoted the view and made the common Bangladeshi Muslims believe that the ethnic minorities are migrants and not ‘Bhumiputra’ (son of the soil). The Home Ministry had instructed the commercial banks to control withdrawal of substantial cash money against account holders of Hindu community and to stop disbursement of business loans to Hindu community in the districts adjoining the India-Bangladesh border (Samad, 1998). It’s an unwritten law in Bangladesh, that the religious minorities cannot be given sensitive positions, like head of state, chief of armed forces, governor of Bangladesh Bank, Ambassador in a Bangladesh Mission, or secretary in the ministry of Defence, Home, Foreign Affairs and Finance. Minorities are deliberately discriminated in recruitment in civil and military jobs, business and trade, bank loans and credit (Shaha, 1998, p. 5). The mainstream political parties also cannot accept that their leader could be from among the minority community. It is rare to find a religious minority at the helms of affairs in Bangladesh.

Can the Government of Bangladesh deny the fact that the Minorities are “Legally identified enemies” in their homeland, where they are living for many generations?

It’s a shame! Instead of protecting the minorities, the Government of Bangladesh had always tried to hide the whole gamut of torture, rape and murder incidents behind a fabric of lies.

Bangladesh 1971: Pakistan soldier checks man circumcised or notThe Bangladeshi Government officially encourages forced conversion to Islam by giving incentive. As per B.D. government religious ministry circular number 2/a-7/91-92 dated 28 November 1991, the new Muslims are paid cash doles through budgetary allocations in the name of so-called rehabilitation (Press Release, nd).

For writing this article, the present author had interviewed many Bangladeshi refugees and liberal Muslims, gone through their websites and newspapers, and read many books and articles. This article will enumerate many facts, which the World is unaware of.

To begin with, let’s see how much freedom Bangladeshi government has given to minorities. The Constitution of 1972 pronounced secularism as a fundamental principal of state policy. Article 41 guarantees freedom of religion in Bangladesh and Article 12 has provided an interpretation of the principle of secularism that made Bangladesh a multi-religious society and maintained separation between state and religion. But this Article was discarded in 1977 and subsequent constitutional changes under military rulers compromised the principle of secularism and gave rise to religion-based politics. Under General Ziaur Rahman (1976–1981), the 5th amendment of the constitution was effected. Under this amendment, the principle of “secularism” was replaced by “faith in Almighty Allah” [Article 8 (1)]; and the amended Article 8 .1(a) states: “absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah should be the basis of all actions”. Gen. H. M. Ershed through the 8th Amendment declared Islam as the state religion. The constitution, in fact, makes its beginning with the words Bismillah-ar-rahman-ar-rahim.

While Articles 27–29 confirms equal opportunities for all citizens, Article 44 equivocally guarantees the enforcement of fundamental rights, and Sections 295–298 of the Penal Code give protection from offences against religious places or practices, the reality is far too different. Minorities are never adequately represented. In the seventh Parliament, there were only 11 male and three female members belonging to minority communities. Taken together minority groups occupied only 4.24 percent seats in Parliament, though they form 12% of the total population. Democracy is a rich man’s game in Bangladesh. Business is the primary or secondary occupation of about 75% of the elected representatives (Barman et al, nd).

The political parties, despite electoral promises written in election manifestos, failed to stand shoulder to shoulder with the minorities. Not a single political party has ever come forward for a cause of the minorities (Shaha, 1998, p.5). Ain O Shalish Kendra (1999, p.192) reported:

The constitutional amendments have introduced an overt bias towards Muslims in public policy and practice and encouraged discrimination against other religious communities… with the increasing politicization of Islam by the state and political organizations, religious minorities fear that an escalation of religious discrimination may stigmatize them as second class citizens and lead to religious intolerance.

Bangladesh is on her way to become a ‘Talibanistan’ and the state religion Islam is helping the process by killing and displacing minorities, be it the Hindus, Christians, Buddhists or Animists. Islamic extremists often target temples, churches, and libraries etc. of minorities in an effort to eradicate their cultural memory. Islamic extremists have already formed a shadow government in Bangladesh. Roads of Bangladesh are shacked with the slogan “We are Taliban and Bangla Will be Afghan”. It’s long since democracy had died in Bangladesh and the Islamic theocracy had triumphed. In the near future, Bangladesh will become a major threat to world peace and security.

Ethnic cleansing of Minorities in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) started in 1946 with the infamous Noakhali carnage (10th October 1946). In the full-moon night of Kojagari Lakshi Puja (a Hindu festival), 218 Hindus were slaughtered, over 10,000 Hindu houses were looted, more than 2000 Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam and several thousand Hindu women were raped and hundreds of Hindu temples were destroyed. The sad part is that Mr. Burrows, the then Governor of state, said that it was only natural that Hindu women would be raped by hundreds of Muslims because they are prettier than Muslim women (Roy, 2007, p. 120,165).

During the infamous genocide of 1971, which continued for nine months, by the then Muslim East Pakistan Army, up to three million Bangladeshis were slaughtered, ten million Hindus fled as refugees to India (Kennedy, 1971, p. 6-7) and two hundred thousand women were raped (Roy, 2007, p. 298). The neighboring Muslims of the Hindu families use to mark a yellow “H” on the Hindu houses to guide the marauding army to their targets like the Jewish holocaust (Schanberg, 1994). The bulk of the victims of the 1971 East Pakistan holocaust were Hindus, about 80%, followed by Muslims (15%) and Christians (5%) (Roy, 2007, p. 312).

Minority oppression has increased tremendously after the October 2001 National Election in Bangladesh. The thugs of the pro-Islam Bangladesh Nationalist Party and their Islamic ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, beat up the Hindus, Christians and Buddhists. Their political involvement is strongly opposed by the nationalist-Islamist political parties, with many Hindus being prevented from voting in elections, through intimidation or exclusion from voter-lists (The Daily Star. January 4, 2006). Often the Hindus are warned that if they want to vote their women would be violated; they would be made to leave Bangladesh. A third method is physically preventing the Hindus from voting. The nationalist-Islamist party thugs act as vigilantes to prevent Hindus from going to polling centers, mainly in rural areas (Roy, 2007, pp. 359, 152). The government does nothing to ensure a free and fair election.

Kidnapping and rape of women and children, forced marriage of minor girls, extortion of money as Jizya tax, forced conversion and murder of members of the minority communities are a day-to-day happening. Hindu widows are often forced to kill one of her cow by her own hand, cook the beef and eat it and become Muslim (Roy, 2007. p 120,125).


Many families migrate out of their “Homeland” since time immemorial for physical safety. And there is no end in sight. It is because this ‘Hindu Holocaust’ is fully intentional and approved or connived by the government, aiming to wipe out the entire minority to turn Bangladesh purely Islamic. The situation is so alarming that, while describing the plight of minorities in Bangladesh, The published an article (Nov. 29, 2003) with the heading: “Bangladesh's religious minorities: Safe only in the departure lounge”. (cited Dutta, 2005). A list of prominent incidents from various sources are given below:

1.
Bangladesh 1971 mass-grave of murdered minoritiesHindu women (from age 8 to 70) are often subjected to gang rape. About 200 Hindu women were gang raped by Muslims in Char Fashion, Bhola, in one night at a single spot (The Daily Star, Nov. 16, 2001)
2.
The Islamic terrorists have levied Jizya taxes on the minority Christians and have told the Christians to give them their wives, sisters and daughters for sex if they failed to pay the tax. (Source: Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Dec. 13, 2001).
3.
The Muslim thugs gang-raped mother and daughter together on the same bed with the parents and children forced to watch; and they have raped mothers in front of their children (The Daily Janakantha, Feb. 5, 2002; April 22, 2002).
4.
On February 8, 1989, about 400 Muslims from the neighboring villages attacked the Hindu community of the village of Sobahan, in Daudkandi, Comilla. The Muslims reminded them that, “the government has declared Islam to be the state religion, and therefore you have to either convert to Islam or leave the country.” They set ablaze every Hindu household after looting, razed the temples, and then gang-raped women. (Source: ‘Baishammer Shikar Bangladesher Hindu Sampradaya (The Hindus of Bangladesh: Victim of Discrimination), Matiur Rahman & Azizul Huq eds., 1990, cited Dutta, 2005).
5.
Often the commanding officer of police stations personally conducts violence against minorities. As example, Tofazzal Hossain, Officer-in-Charge, "led a procession at the dead of night that ransacked two Ashrams (place of religious retreat for Hindus), a temple of Goddess Kali, and three houses at Gopalpur when seven to eight people were injured in mass beating." (The Daily Star, June 3, 2003).
6.
On August 28, 2004, the Paramilitary forces, together with local extremists, burned down 400 dwelling houses in Mahalchari, Chittagong Hill Tracts, after looting the villages, gang raping their women and destroying Buddhist temples. These indigenous Buddhist people represented 97% of the population in 1947, by 2001 they accounted for less than 50% (US Department of State’s Country Report on Human Rights Practices, 2004).
7.
The police rarely allow rape victims of minority groups to press charges against their rapists. Typically, if a rape victim goes to the police and insist on action, they are given the “run around” for a few days so the rape evidence disappears. The police officers themselves will then persecute the victims. The victims frequently face death-threats or kidnapping if they try to file charges (The Daily Janakantha, Feb. 16, 2002).
8.
Eleven members of same family roasted alive (which includes a child of four day) in village Southern Shadhanpur on 19 November 2003 (Bando, 2004, p. 13)

Several thousand Hindu temples have already been systematically destroyed (352 in 1992 alone). Delwar Hossain Sayedee, the Jamaat-e-Islami leader decreed that all statues except those of Muslim worshipers should be destroyed (Baldwin, 2002). The Sanskrit and Hindu religious University (Saraswata Samaj) in Dhaka, in operation before independence of Bangladesh in 1971, was closed after the independence. It’s land and assets was confiscated by the government of Bangladesh in a bid to wipe out Hindu educational system, whereas millions of dollars are spent for the development of Madrassas (Roy, 2008).

Following table summarizes the atrocities of various types and their consequences:

Sr. No


Category of Violence


Types of Violence


Immediate affects


Long term affects

1


Political and social discrimination


Denial to Job, Prosperity and discouragement in political involvement


Loss of social status, Unemployment, No scope for prosperity.


Social backwardness, Poverty, disenfranchised from holding political power, Political and social insignificance.

2


Legal oppression


Vested Property Act of 1972, Justice and police protection often denied.


Loss of property, forceful capture of agricultural lands.


Poverty, Mass emigration, Forced exodus, refugee displacement

3


Physical repression


Physical Assault, Kidnapping of women and rape.


Fear, Loss of self-respect.


Mass emigration, Forced exodus, refugee displacement.

4


Mental Torture


Islamic Death threat, Rape threat, Arson threat.


Fear, Loss of security, Physiological trauma.


Mass emigration, Forced exodus.

5


Cultural and Religious suppression


Destruction of temples, Forced conversions, Forced marriage


Social and religious genocide


Loss of inherited identity, Loss of Religious Freedom, Frustration

6


Financial oppression


Money extortion as Jizya Tax, Kidnapping children for ransom, Arson.


Fear, Loss of security, Loss of property.


Poverty, Mass emigration, Forced exodus, refugee displacement.

7


Organized Mass Torture


Sadism, Islam approved torture. Rape


Religious slaughter, Brutal suffering,


Loss of population,Mass emigration, Forced exodus. refugee displacement

8


Predetermined Mass Killing


Infamous genocide of 1971, Noakhali massacre in 1946; Islam approved Mass Murders,


Mass death, Number of orphans increases.


Community cannot reconstitute itself as a viable community and get destabilized, Poverty, Mass emigration of the living, refugee displacement

9


Suppression of facts


Honest journalists, educationalists and prominent people are killed, Human rights investigators are detained.


Brutalization unreported. Media silenced, censored and / or purchased by ruling party.


World blissfully ignorant and Ethnic cleansing continues unabated.

Banglaesh Muslim devotees kill hindu manThe Bangladesh government can seize the land of these ‘legally identified enemies’ at any time lawfully and force them to emigrate. In Bangladesh, it is legal to capture the land of a Hindu and to give it to Muslims. It is Vested Property Act (VPA), which is same as was Enemy Property Act (EPA) in Pakistan. In 1965, when Indo-Pakistani War ended in a shameful defeat for Pakistan; in an undisguised act of revenge, Pakistan passed the EPA, which was deliberately aimed at its Hindu population. This act empowered the government to declare their land and possessions as enemy property and confiscate it. After independence, the new nation, Bangladesh, rewrote the EPA as the Vested Property Act, explicitly stating that only the law’s title had changed, not its content. This had caused much horror to the Hindus and other religious minorities, who were now ‘outsiders’, nay enemy of state, in their own country. At the time of Bangladesh independence, nearly one in five citizens was a Hindu; today the proportion is less than one in ten. The Vested Property Act and fear of communal violence are the two main reasons behind the emigration of Hindus to India (Ain O Salish Kendra, 1999, p. 192)

How inhuman the Vested Property Act (VPA) is and how insulting would such a law be?

Just imagine for a moment that the U.S. or the Canadian law empowers the government to seize the land and property of non-Christians and give it to Christians, or Indian Government or Israeli Government is empowered to seize the lands of Muslims and give it to the Hindus or to the Jews, respectively. It’s not difficult to imagine the kind of international outcry would, quite justifiably, be heard from every human right groups, NGOs, media, and governments around the world. Every right-minded citizen will raise an outcry.

Fortunately, no such inhuman law exists in the civilized world sparing us of deafening protests from those advocacy groups. But distressfully, both Pakistan and Bangladesh have such a barbaric law on the books for several decades. The only difference between their law and the hypothetical one above is that they are Muslim-majority countries and the laws address property of non-Muslims.

The seized lands under VPA have benefited every major political party in Bangladesh. Between 2001 and 2006, 45% of the spoils went to the center-right BNP, 31% to the center-left Awami League (the figures were reversed when the Awami League was in power), 15% to Islamist parties, and the rest to Jatiya and others (Benkin, nd). Till 1998, more than 2 million acres of land have been taken over from Hindus under VPA (Barkat & Jaman, 1998).

As per another newspaper report, the Adivashi (aboriginal) community already had lost about 80% of their land to the local hooligans, supported by strong political backing, as they are poor and ignorant of their rights. They have hardly any knowledge about the legal provisions and documents related to land property. Therefore, they easily fall prey to opportunists (Bhoumic & Dhar, 1999). The survival of the Garo tribes of Mymensingh is already under threat, because the government had taken their natural forest for rubber plantation. As per another report (Barkat & Shafiquzzaman, 1996, p. 7), from 1964 onwards, on an average basis 538 Hindus have 'vanished' each day because of this act. The same report calculated that the vanishing-rate has not been uniform over periods: in 1964-71, it averaged 703 per day; between 1971 and 1981, it was 537; and in 1981-91, the figure stood at 439 (Trivedi, 2007). Another report estimates that more than 500 Hindus crossing over the border every day (Chowdhury, 1998, p. 214). Professor Abul Barkat of Dhaka University undertook the most authoritative study of the VPA and concluded that by 1997, 40 percent of Hindu families in Bangladesh had been affected by it and more than half of all Hindu-owned land already had been confiscated under the act (Benkin, 2008).

Here’s another common method of land grabbing. Bangladeshi Muslims are mostly landless agricultural laborers, whereas many Hindus are rich farmers, owning a large tract of agricultural lands, tilled by Muslim peasants. At a time, when the Hindus suffer from extreme insecurity, some Muslims would appear as their protectors in exchange of land, to be sold to them for a pittance. After some time, they would disappear, and their place will be taken by another bunch of similar protectors, who would ask for some more land. This way, eventually the Hindu will loose all his land and leave the country to become as refugee in India. The idea is to take over as much of his land with proper documentation for as little money as possible (Roy, 2007, p. 165).

Though during 2001, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh had directed the government to return the land, confiscated under this Act, to real owners, but no Hindus got their land back. There are two reasons behind this.

Firstly, the Ruling Party has no intention to abolish such a law. The VPA is still in force and actively being used right at this time. In 2001, at the conclusion of its term in office, the Awami League passed the Vested Property Return Act. Everyone considers that this was an empty gesture, which the AL government knew would never be implemented. They had five years to do something, but did not act. It was a cynical action, and in fact the Awami League received as much spoils from the VPA as did its rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Therefore, no land has been returned. (Benkin, 2009).

Secondly, corruption has touched almost every level of the legal system and there is widespread abuse of legal process. Such malpractices, contrary to judicial independence, are undermining public confidence in the administration of justice. The clerks and peons often under bribe misplace records, remove documents and sometimes even destroy them. Even the Judges in Bangladesh as a normal (mal) practice receive bribe or other undue advantages (Talukder, 1994, p. 101). Police is also identified as the most corrupt category in the country. In fact, Berlin-based Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index 2001 and 2002 each identified Bangladesh as the most corrupt country in the world. In this scenario, it is not difficult to imagine, not many Hindus will be benefited by the Law in spite of Court decision.

How silly, a Bangladeshi official even justified the VPA as a form of “protection” for the Hindu minority! Again how silly it is when, Kazi Azizul Huq of the Khalefat Andolin Bangladesh said that many of the Hindus have left “voluntarily” even abandoning or selling their lands (Benkin, nd). Did the World forget that countless German Jews “voluntarily” transferred their properties in the 1930s?

What a terrible irony! In 1971, the new Bangladesh was greatly indebted to India, without whose support it never could achieve independence.

International human rights organizations are yet to acknowledge the full extent of the ethnic-cleansing in Bangladesh, because the facts often go unreported. Often Human Rights Investigators are detained. Media is often censored and / or purchased. Honest journalists are often murdered. Hence, the World is blissfully ignorant and their inaction encourages the perpetrators to continue doing it with impunity. But in spite of this, Amnesty International has procured significant factual data and the State Department-supported U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has gathered limited documentation. Foreign diplomats in Bangladesh have set up a “Fact-Finding Commission” to investigate such atrocities and repression.

Very recently, Bangladeshi newspapers have started featuring stories on minority oppressions. To suppress facts of minority oppressions, Islamic fundamentalists have killed many Journalists and prominent members of minority community as well as liberal Muslims, while many have been jailed.

Bertil Lintner, a Hong-Kong based senior journalist for the Far Eastern Economic Review and a contributing writer for The Wall Street Journal, with much frustration, described how authorities initially declined to grant him a visa to visit Bangladesh after his first reports created a furor. He also received threats over email that said he would suffer the same fate as journalist Daniel Pearl [kidnapped & killed by militants in Pakistan] if he ventured to visit Bangladesh again. Linter lamented that rising Islamic fundamentalism and religious intolerance are posing trouble for the regions and beyond (Guha Mozumder, 2003).

William Sloan, president of the Canadian branch of the American Association of Jurors, visited Bangladesh and described his horror on seeing Hindu victims of torture. One man's fingers had been cut off, another's hand was amputated, still more were blinded and others had iron rods nailed through their legs or abdomen. He also recalled the desperate stories of women and children who had been gang-raped, often in front of their fathers or husbands (Baldwin, 2002)

Taslima Nasrin, appalled by what she witnessed, described the horrifying experience of one Hindu family in her 1993 novel, Shame. Muslim clerics threatened her life with fatwa. Fearing for her life, she fled to Europe, where she still lives.

Abdul Ghaffar Chowdhury, a columnist and liberal activist from London lamented that "After seeing what is happening to the minorities, I am ashamed to say I am a Muslim," (Guha Mozumder, 2003)

It is shocking that the Hindus in India, who share the same ancestral root, culture and religion, are completely apathetic to their coreligionists in Bangladesh. It is utter disgrace and real shame to Indians (particularly those old, fossilized and spineless Indian politicians) that they silently watch the cleansing of Hindus from Islamic Bangladesh. When Indians remain silent about the sufferings of their coreligionists, what can be expected from the international community? It’s not time for Indians to maintain a hands-off policy. How we can ignore the continuous influx of Hindu refugees on Indian soil? The basic cause is that the spineless Indian politicians typically lack the courage to ignore Muslim vote-bank politics in India and publicly address this problem.

The Hindu refugees should be given strong legal protection in India. This will assure them their human rights, education for their children, freedom of movement, and better employment opportunities. Many of them are well-educated and have potential for creative contribution to the society. Often they were wealthy people in Bangladesh but now reduced to wandering day-laborers or rickshaw-pullers; or in worst situation, to digging through garbage dumps for food with their skins sticking like paper to their skeletons and the bones protruding. They fit every classic definition of a refugee community. The Muslim nation of Bangladesh gave them nothing except pain and suffering but they have something to expect from the civilized nation, India, world’s second-largest democracy. The great nation of India, throughout her recorded history, never refused protection to anyone; then why this apathy? If given chances, they will prosper.

Like a cruel joke of Allah, many Muslims are also taking shelter in India in guise of Hindu refugees for better living standard and for promoting Islamic terrorism. They need to be positively identified and pushed back to Bangladesh.

Indian Government should also put pressure to repeal the racist Vested Property Act in Bangladesh. This callous law offends every principle of human dignity. With this Act in force, ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh remains legal. Also, the refugees need to get suitable compensation for their loss of property under this act. Until the Indian government, who has to open borders to the victims of the horrendous Act, takes any action, the international community is not going to anything. The time for empty speeches, lame excuses and official meetings that lead nowhere is over. Bangladesh must be made not only to act, but to act fast. We need to focus on the results rather than efforts. To achieve this, the Indian politicians must put aside their individual egos and recognize that our goal and the welfare of the Bangladeshi Hindus are far more important than any of us as individuals. If we can accomplish something for the people, it is not at all important who gets the credit for it or the praise. But regretfully, too many of Indian politicians still put themselves or their organizations above a noble cause, which is, of course, a betrayal to the cause itself. The Indian politicians must organize an umbrella organization that coordinates action to stop ethnic cleansing in neighboring countries. No person or group needs to give up their independence, but if we are to succeed in helping these people, we must be organized and united. It is not just Hindus but also Sikhs, Christians and others in India who, if they believe in equality, should insist in public that India's neighbors show respect for the human rights of minorities.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the civilized world should demand an end to this human tragedy. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and others often have urged for setting up international monitors of human rights violation in various parts of the world, but they have been silent on this matter. The United Nations, NATO, and other international organizations, likewise, can be found in all sorts of international trouble spots. But they, too, have been silent on this issue.
Through this article, all right-thinking common citizens of every country, the honest and upright journalists, prominent political leaders, global opinion makers, human rights groups, and people seated in positions of authority, European Union and the United Nations are appealed to pay their kind attention to the sufferings of minorities in Bangladesh at the earliest. The oppressors must be handed due justice for the ethnic-cleansing, murder and violation of human rights of people from minority communities in Bangladesh. Humankind has witnessed numberless incidents of ethnic cleansing in history. Open the 1400 years of recorded history of Islam: blood dips from every page of it. Whatever is happening in Muslim Bangladesh is nothing new. In modern times, the civilized world, quite sadly, has been consistent in combating them in timely manner. Generally nothing is done until dead-bodies are piled up too high to be obscure. If left unchecked, the Bangladeshi Muslims will very soon add another glorious chapter to the Islamic history by completely cleansing the minorities from its soil. Would they succeed? Let’s wait and see.

Humanity Assassinated: Ethnic Cleansing of Minorities in Islamic Bangladesh
 
Video Interviews with Minorities in Bangladesh

Over couple of decades minorities of Bangladesh and former East Pakistan were hounded, oppressed and slaughtered. There number declined from 37% to 29% in 20 years of Pakistani rule. After the independence, the population of minorities has further declined from 29% to 14%. Some argued the number being 16%.

This trend of population declination clearly depicts that minorities are in brink at Bangladesh. Since 1980 until now hundreds of thousands of minorities are forced to evict Bangladesh, their land being forcefully occupied by forces opposing minority existence in Bangladesh and thousands of minority women are gang raped without mercy.

We understand that some elements opposing the very existence of minorities in Bangladesh certainly will resist such claim by HRCBM. Henceforth we are furnishing video interviews of minority victims both from past and present.

The video you are about to see will depict the nature of atrocities and human rights abuses against minorities in Bangladesh. << watch video on link
 
Rise of Islamic Militancy & Ethnic Cleansing in Bangladesh

IMAGINE how it would be like when 25 million people vanish from a projected population of 39 million. Imagine how it would be like when two and a half million acres of prime land is grabbed from a country smaller in size than the State of Wisconsin.

Imagine how it would be like when one is subjected to rape, unending torture, forced conversion, discrimination in education and employment, intimidation to practice one's own religious faith, loot, arson and other savageries of worst kind.


This is the story of the Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and the ethnic minorities of Bangladesh -- a story of slow genocide, a story of violence and betrayal by their own government, a testament of hard-line Islamic politicking designed to minority cleansing, a continuing saga that has played out since 1947 to the present day Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has been a fertile ground for bigoted Islamic idealism for a long time. Especially, since 1975 with the assassination of the country's founding father and altering of the constitution, the Islamic Radicalism has been thrust into the political landscape of the country. With enormous financial help from branded terrorists, outlawed regimes, and proponents of Wahabism such as Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iraq, Iran and other renegade terrorist networks.

Bangladesh has built hundreds of thousands of Mosques and madrassahs that constantly foment violence against non-Muslims and country's progressive groups and cultural institutions. There are 64,000 madrassahs or so called religious schools where the unsuspecting Muslim youths are recruited and trained to be the foot soldiers for a Taliban style Bangladesh. They espouse hate and bigotry against anyone that does not conform to their brand of militant Islam. The infamous American Taliban, John Walker Lindh, was a graduate from one such Madrassah in Pakistan.


Persecution of minorities in Bangladesh has been a lingering issue for past sixty years with some intermittent reprieves that came along with the changing hands of power. But the aura of minority cleansing never fully subsided. October 2001, when the coalition of Islamic hard-liners swept into power trumpeting their goal to make Bangladesh a pure Islamic Country as their election themes-- brought a new momentum to their hostility towards minorities. They marked their victory with unprecedented and unprovoked attacks on innocent men, women and children belonging to the minority communities.

The government not only shamelessly failed to provide the country's 15 million ethno-religious minorities any protection against these attacks, but also showed its utter indifference to human life by cowardly aiding in the history's worst savagery. Since then, hundreds of thousands of young girls and women have been abducted and raped, tens of thousands of minority owned homes and businesses have been looted and razed, hundreds of places of worship have been burnt down all across Bangladesh. Women as old as seventy and girls as young seven have not even been spared of their brunt of rape and terror. Abduction of young girls from homes at gunpoint, gang rape, and forced conversions to Islam have been endemic in Bangladesh.


Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is responsible for this latest cycle of crimes against humanity.
She has personally orchestrated each and every recent dreadful terror against the minorities with a clear and unambiguous purpose of cleansing the country's minorities to transform it into a Pure Muslim Country. She has used every resource of the government at her disposal to intimidate, terrorize and torture people into either leaving the country or submitting to convert to Islamic extremism. Today, forced conversion to Islam has become a corrosive fodder to the fundamentalists, courtesy of Begum Khaleda Zia.

It may recall the massacre that took place back in April 1992. The then Prime Minister of the country, Begum Khaleda Zia used her army to systematically murder 600 tribal residents of Logang in Chittagong Hill Tracts, and burned the entire village to the ground. Seven months later, she orchestrated another wave of minority persecution in which 15 minorities were killed, 2,600 women raped, 10,000 injured, 40,000 dwelling houses destroyed, 3, 600 temples damaged/razed and 200,000 rendered homeless. Begum Zia, like her Islamic fundamentalist predecessors has been a mortal danger to pluralistic democracy and the rule of law.

Recently, while she has deployed armies on the streets to curtail the rights of citizens, to take prisoner of political rivals and human rights activists, to stifle the voices of progressive thinkers and journalists on vital national issues such as human rights, freedom of religion. she has allowed Bangladesh to become a cocoon of terror, a hub for international terrorism.It is an established fact that Bangladesh now harbors and supports international terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and Harkat-ul-Jihad. Fighters trained and given new identities in Bangladesh routinely find their ways to conflicts throughout the world and are wrecking havoc everywhere.

These are worrisome developments for Bangladesh, the world and for the entire humanity.

With the government's active encouragement the fundamentalists have often revealed their ugly fangs by perpetrating terrors on Bangladesh's most vulnerable citizens, the minorities. We believe the initiative to correct the great miscarriage of justice, to right the decades of wrongs committed by the Islamic Zealots must come, first and foremost, from the citizens of Bangladesh who believe in peace, freedom and justice by forming a united resistance against militant Islam in the country.

In the same vein I remind the International Community that Bangladesh has willfully violated all International Laws and Conventions that specifically address the Human Rights and Freedom of Religion Issues. Today, throughout the world terror has cast its ugly spells on life and liberty- the very things the civilized world pride itself upon. And persecution of minorities in Bangladesh is certainly an inseparable phenomenon of global terror because the terrorist networks responsible for this are also global.

They are linked together with a common purpose to exterminate anyone not subscribing to their brand of religion. History has taught us, time and again, that cowering into inaction when terror manifest itself is at civilization's own great peril. It challenge the civilized nations to heed the history's call to actions against the plague of Islamic Jihad.

All along it has demanded retribution and justice for all sufferings, to repatriate and compensate victims of forced exodus. In 2001, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, promised the nation to investigate the carnage and to rehabilitate the victims. Two years elapsed since she has predictably failed to deliver on her promise, for she is a player in that "axis of terror". It has demanded the government to restore the original constitution of Bangladesh by repealing the 5th (Introducing Islam to the Constitution) and 8th (Declaring Islam as the State Religion) Amendments the two very divisive issues that took away 'Equal Rights' and destroyed the moral fabric of the nation.

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has shown no indication of changing course, let alone acting on this. Rather she has partnered with the Islamic hard-liners and the proponents of these discriminatory laws and publicly professed her desire to make Bangladesh a pure Islamic Country. Her newfound majority in the parliament is only an added incentive for her and her partners in Islamic Jihad to make their bigoted dream come true. It has also demanded the repeal of "Enemy Property Act" or "Vested Property Law" of 1965 from the constitution, under which the country's minorities have been dispossessed of more than 2.5 million acres of prime land. Legislation was passed in the parliament by the Awami-League Government, providing a ray of hope, to end this dreaded episode of grabbing of our lands. But the new government of Khaleda Zia, scuttled the entire legislation through various administrative maneuvers even before the law took effect. She failed this time too. Trusting her again would further jeopardize the minorities of Bangladesh.

It is time to place BD minority demand to the world community. It is no longer can accept this continuing saga of being treated as aliens, hounded and hunted by Islamic radicals, in our own land. It has endured enough pain and sufferings, sustained huge loss of lives to warrant the world's attention toward a just, equitable and permanent solution to the tone of what was worked out in Bosnia and East Timor for its' minorities.

Today, It is confronted with a grave challenge, a challenge to BD minority own existence, a challenge to the world community as to what kind of civilization it will usher in for the generations that will follow us. We are confident about our resolve to meet this challenge and any challenge head on. We remain hopeful that the world community will take up the issue and adequately respond to this human rights crisis.

Finally, the rise of militant Islam in Bangladesh is a 'menace' to our lives and an 'overcast' on our civilization. We must defeat this menacing face of terror and fundamentalism and defeat we will. So long there is violation of human rights, anyone's rights.We will continue to inform and challenge the world community. To that end, as a Nobel Laureate, the bravest of all, our pride, Rabindra Nath Tagore proclaimed more than a hundred years ago, we say: "Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake".

Bertil Lintner is a seasoned journalist specializing in South East Asian Affairs. He reports for Far Eastern Economic Review and has written 5 books on Burma. This paper was presented by him at a conference in New York on February 9, 2003
 
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Bangladesh: Buddhist monks harassed by army

The Chakma News has received information that Buddhist monks were harassed and verbally abused in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh by the Bangladesh army personnel.

CHT remains heavily militarized despite the agreement to withdraw the army from the CHT as provided in the CHT Peace Accord signed between the government of Bangladesh and the indigenous jumma peoples. Contrary to the Peace Accord, the military have set up too many army barracks and check points here and there unnecessarily to harass the indigenous peoples of CHT.

According to the sources, Buddhist monks including Ven. Bishuddhananda Mahathero (chief priest of Ratnankur Bana Vihara, Buddhist temple) were returning to their temple in Naniachar after attending a religious ceremony at Tarachari village in the morning of 21 May 2009. As their vehicle was about to cross the Bogachari army check post in Rangamati district, the army stopped them and asked them to get down. The army wanted to body search all the Buddhist monks.

Ven. Bishuddhananda Mahathero protested saying they were Buddhist monks and should not be subjected to body search. But army officer Captain Shamim forced them to get down and used abusive language at the Buddhist monks. At the order of Captain Shamim a group of army personnel came down to the scene with clubs and ropes in their hands.

However, a senior army officer rushed to the rescue of the Buddhist monks and asked for their forgiveness for the harassment meted out to them by the army personnel.

The indigenous peoples of Naniachar led by Hill Women’s Federation took out a protest rally against the harassment of the Buddhist monks by the Bangladesh army. The army arrested two of the participants identified as Ms Juthika Chakma, Convenor of Hill Women’s Federation, Naniachar Unit; and Ms Mika Chakma, a member of Hill Women’s Federation while they were returning from the rally. Both of them were later released. But the army forced them to put their signature on a blank sheet of paper in army custody and took their photographs prior to their release. This has put these indigenous women activists at risk of arrest and prosecution.

In Bangladesh there is no freedom of religion for the minorities. In CHT Buddhism has often come under target by the army. For more detail, see "Bangladesh: The Army attacks Buddhism to facilitate illegal settlement in the Chittagong Hill Tracts", available at Asian Centre for Human Rights
 
And you forgot the ethnic cleansing of Muslims, Christians, low cast Hindus in your own India? which is still continuing.

Come on have a heart
 
Dont attack the messenger janaji....lets not be offtopic(as if one exists in this bs).....anyways,this is a bd related threaded,and lets stick to that......i think,the whole article is way too anti-islamic,thats where it loses its credibility with all bs,though some points raised are worth debating!..
 
Bangladesh: Christian Family Beaten, Cut and Face Charges
Muslim neighbors, local council threaten to burn home if they file assault case.


MALUMGHAT, Bangladesh (Compass Direct News) -- The harassment that Bangladeshi converts from Islam face from Muslim neighbors in this southeastern area near Cox's Bazar can take serious turns – as it did last month, when an attack by about a dozen Muslims left a Christian family with machete wounds.

Confident that no police would side with Christian converts from Islam, the Muslims in Chakaria town, near Cox's Bazar 380 kilometers (236 miles) southeast of the capital city of Dhaka, later filed false charges of assault against the wounded and limping Christians, family members said.

The smallest of claims can serve to provoke such attacks. Laila Begum, a 45-year-old Christian convert from Islam, said she was helping to make disbursements for a local non-governmental micro-credit agency called Darpan in Chakaria town on Nov. 1 when 10 to 15 Muslim neighbors blocked her way and demanded 200 taka (US$3).

Begum told Compass she had borrowed 2,000 taka (US$30) last year from a neighbor, a Muslim woman who goes by the single name of Kohinoor, and this year paid her back with interest. Telling the group she would give them no more money as she had already repaid the loan, Begum said, she asked why they were demanding more.

They began beating her, snatching a pair of gold ornaments from her ear.

"Suddenly they got equipped with sticks, iron rods, knives and machetes," she said. "Several places of my head were lacerated by machetes and iron rods. They also cut two of my fingers when I tried to fend off their attacks. They beat me in several places of my body by iron rods and sticks."

Begum said her husband Abdur Rahman, a 48-year-old gatekeeper at Memorial Baptist Hospital, and her 27-year-old son Selim Rahman, heard her screams and were also beaten when they rushed to help her.

"They thrust at my son with machetes and a sharp knife and stabbed him in his thigh," she said. "They beat my son with sticks and iron rods, knocking him down. They also beat the kneecap of my husband and other parts of his body."


When her 18-year-old daughter Rosy Rahman came to their aid, the attackers punched her in the neck and chin, she said.

"They beat her in various parts of the body with sticks," Begum said. "Shamelessly they removed her wrap over the breasts in front of dozens of onlookers."


One of the attacking neighbors, she said, told her, "Nobody will come to save you if we beat you, because you are converted to Christianity from Islam."

Begum, her husband and elder son were admitted to a nearby hospital. Her husband is still hobbled, walking with the aid of a stick.

"Muslim neighbors filed a case against us where they mentioned that we had beaten them – it is a false case," Begum said. "They beat us and they filed a false case against us."


Police Sub-inspector Manjurul Alam confirmed that the Muslim neighbors had filed a case against Rahman's family, and that Rahman had also filed an assault case against the attackers.

"We are investigating it," he said.

Begum said local Muslims threatened to beat the Christians again if they filed a case against them.

"They threatened that if we file a case, they will carry out an arson attack, and our house will be burnt to the ground," she said. "They will evict us from the locality. They will beat us again and our life will be in great trouble."

The family informed local governing council members about the attack, but they demanded 20,000 taka (US$300) to settle the matter and also threatened them, she said.

"The local council officials also told us that if we file any case in the police station, our houses will be burnt to ashes and we will be evicted from the locality," she said. "The Muslim neighbors are spreading rumors that we beat them, that we borrowed 22,000 taka from them and that we did not pay them back the money. But we do not have anyone to stand beside us and listen to us."

Belligerent Attitude

Because the family members are converts from Islam, they said, neighbors and distant relatives often pick quarrels with them over any small issue, with villagers later joining in to threaten or attack them.

"If we go to the market or any public places, Muslim people push us roughly from behind and use ****** words against us about Christianity," said the oldest son, Salim Rahman.


The entire family is living in isolation due to their conversion, which the female members said is especially difficult for them.

"Whenever I go outside, local people look at me with evil leers," said the oldest daughter, Rosy Rahman. "Everyone bad-mouths me and casts aspersions on our faith."


She said such harassment forced her to stop going to school in 2004.

"If I had not stopped going to school, my life would have been in trouble," she said. "I feel insecure and mixed-up, because local people always want to deflower me. If anything bad happens to me, no one in the society will stand beside me. What did we do against the society? We did nothing against them, we simply changed our faith."

She said the ostracism and societal misconduct sometimes lead her to contemplate suicide.

History of Resentment

When the family and others converted to Christianity in 1991, area resentment festered and finally broke into violence in late 1992, when local Muslims vandalized and burned the local church and several Christian-owned homes.

The government deployed more than 2,000 police and other law enforcement personnel to bring the situation under control, and some local Muslims were arrested for arson.

"The arrests made the local Muslims very angry," said pastor Benu Barua of Memorial Christian Baptist Church of Malumghat.

Rage dating back to the events of the 1990s may be at the root of the beating of Begum's family, he said.
 
And you forgot the ethnic cleansing of Muslims, Christians, low cast Hindus in your own India? which is still continuing.

Come on have a heart

Jana, the problem is that we have discussed ethnic cleansing in India MILLION times and no one has discussed what a hell BD is for minorities. Even though in India, minorities population is rising, those in BD is REDUCING.
 
And you forgot the ethnic cleansing of Muslims, Christians, low cast Hindus in your own India? which is still continuing.

Come on have a heart

Let me give you an example of India.

"Election won by a woman political leader of Italian origin and roman catholic faith, who made way for a Sikh to be sworn in as Prime Minister by a Muslim in a country 81% Hindu"


which intolerant Indians are you pointing towards?

JAI HIND
ab07c5c5532c0c821a541a53f0fb28d7.gif
 
Let me give you an example of India.

"Election won by a woman political leader of Italian origin and roman catholic faith, who made way for a Sikh to be sworn in as Prime Minister by a Muslim in a country 81% Hindu"


which intolerant Indians are you pointing towards?

JAI HIND
ab07c5c5532c0c821a541a53f0fb28d7.gif



This does not wash the crime of Killing over 3000 Sikhs in 1984 by Hindu fanatics, about 5000 Muslims killed by Hindu fanatics and hundreds of Christians killed and burnt alive by Hindu fanatics in India.
 
Jana, the problem is that we have discussed ethnic cleansing in India MILLION times and no one has discussed what a hell BD is for minorities. Even though in India, minorities population is rising, those in BD is REDUCING.

The Bangladeshi members will be in good position to reply you about their country.

But the source you have quoted in the opening thread is biased and basically run by anti-Islam zionists.

So the credibility of your post ends here.

Period
 
This does not wash the crime of Killing over 3000 Sikhs in 1984 by Hindu fanatics, about 5000 Muslims killed by Hindu fanatics and hundreds of Christians killed and burnt alive by Hindu fanatics in India.

But the fact remains their population and prosperity is rising in India as compared to BD where it's declining day by day
 
The Bangladeshi members will be in good position to reply you about their country.

But the source you have quoted in the opening thread is biased and basically run by anti-Islam zionists.

So the credibility of your post ends here.

Period

BBC

BBC News | SOUTH ASIA | Bangladesh Hindus 'will not go back'

Hundreds of Bangladeshi Hindu families who have crossed the border into India to escape repression at home are refusing to return to their country.

They are now living with their relatives and friends in the border districts of West Bengal and intend to stay there permanently.

In the frontier town of Bongaon in West Bengal, I found several Bangladeshi Hindu families who fled following last month's general elections.

Islamist procession
The rise of Islamists worries minorities
To escape any possible move by the Indian authorities to send them back, these families were apparently hiding in a village near the Thakurnagar railway station.

All these families have horrific stories to tell.

Dipali Adhikari, who did not give out her real name for fear of reprisals against relatives in Bangladesh, related how she and seven other members of her family had managed to cross the border.

Horrific tales

Several days after the election, a group of armed men entered their house of and looted everything they had.

They poisoned the family's fish pond, the main source of their income.

Then they turned to Dipali pointing a knife at her.

"They demanded 100,000 Taka [$1,770] as the fee if we wanted to live in that village," she said.

"Otherwise, they threatened me, we had to leave the country".

Mother and child
Some families have broken up
"It was not just me, other Hindu families in our village too were subjected to similar torture."

"We also heard stories of Hindu women being raped and murdered by armed hoodlums in neighbouring villages" Dipali said.

After this incident, Dipali's family decided to migrate to India.

They contacted a man in the border area who arranged their safe passage to India in exchange of money.


We ran through jungles and over ditches the whole night and didn't stop until we crossed the border

Mita Rani
Dipali left behind her old parents to look after their ancestral home.

Mita Rani Roy was not so lucky.

I met Mita in a village in Malda, in northern West Bengal.

Mita Rani fled her home carrying her one-year old baby with a group of Hindu families when their village came under attack at midnight.

"We ran through jungles and over ditches the whole night and didn't stop until we crossed the border", Mita said.

Her husband Anil Chandra Roy was not at home the day Mita fled the country.

"I have lost contact with my husband since then."

Children
Refugee children don't know what to expect
"I don't know if he knows that we are in India."

Neither Dipali nor Mita Rani wants to return to Bangladesh after their horrifying experience since the government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia came to power in Bangladesh.

Political divisions

In Bangladesh, Hindus are generally perceived as supporters of the Awami League party of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Hindus believe the League holds secular ideals.

Shiekh Hasina's party experienced a humiliating defeat in the elections and she accused her opponents of rigging the polls and intimidating minority voters.

Since the elections, many reports of widespread violence against the Hindu community and destruction of their property have appeared in the Bangladeshi press.

Back in Bangladesh, I visited Dipali's village in the southern Bagerhat district, where her parents are among the few remaining inhabitants.

Border guard
Border guards told to stop migrants
The Hindu-majority village looked deserted.

Dipali's father Ganesh Boiragi told me nearly half of the 250 families in the village had left for unknown destination.

Mr Boiragi said he also intended to leave the country as Hindus were no longer safe in that area.

There are confusing reports of the number of Hindus who have left Bangladesh since the elections.

Bangladesh Refugee Welfare Council, a Calcutta- based group representing Bangladeshi Hindu immigrants in India, claims nearly 100,000 people entered India over the last month-and-a-half.


The Council's Secretary, Bimal Majumdar, says many Bangaldeshi Hindus conceal their identity fearing deportation.

However, West Bengal's Left Front government has dismissed the figures as highly exaggerated.

The Front's Chairman, Biman Bose, says the recent migration of Bangladeshi Hindus to India has not reached that alarming level.

"But whatever is the case, we have requested the government to take up the issue with Bangladesh to ensure the safety and security for minority Hindus in their country, Mr Bose told the BBC.

Mother and baby
Refugees want to stay in India
The Bangladeshi Government consistently denies any case of Hindu migration to India.

A government inquiry has found most media reports of alleged repression of Hindus as exaggerated.

A senior Bangladeshi minister, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, says there was very little truth in what the media have been reporting on the issue.

"In those cases we are taking action against officials who failed to protect the lives of the minorities."

But civil rights groups are unhappy with the way the government is dealing with the issue.

Ain O Salish Kendro, a human rights organisation in Dhaka, has filed a petition in the High Court asking for an independent inquiry of the alleged repression of Hindus.
 
Let me give you an example of India.

"Election won by a woman political leader of Italian origin and roman catholic faith, who made way for a Sikh to be sworn in as Prime Minister by a Muslim in a country 81% Hindu"


which intolerant Indians are you pointing towards?

JAI HIND
ab07c5c5532c0c821a541a53f0fb28d7.gif

The story is, she was not allowed to be sworn in. Also Mr. Singh got the premiership by the blessing of Sonia not by himself. Anyways, Its all good.
 
So the credibility of your post ends here.

Period

Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities of Dallas/Fortworth [NGO in Special Consultative Status with UN]

Kolkata, Jan 30 (IANS) Under the vice-like grip of fundamentalists, Muslim majority Bangladesh is pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing to rid the country of Hindus, says human rights activist and writer Shahriar Kabir.

'What has been going on in Bangladesh since October 2001 is a kind of ethnic cleansing though the government is constantly denying it and accusing us of unleashing a disinformation campaign,' Kabir, who is under surveillance in his country, told IANS in an interview at the Kolkata Book Fair ground here.

'What happened in Gujarat in India was for a period. But in Bangladesh, atrocities on the minority have been continuing since 2001 in the same intensity,' says the 55-year-old general secretary of the South Asian People's Union Against Fundamentalism and Communalism.

'Actually when they (the present government) came to power in 2001, the Talibanisation of Bangladesh had begun. Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ), one of the alliance partners of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led government, gave the slogan 'Amra Sabai Taliban, Bangla hobe Afghan' (We are all Talibans, Bangladesh would be Afghanistan) even before they won elections,' says Kabir.

The partners in the Bangladesh government are BNP, IOJ, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jatiya Party (JP).

'These fundamentalist organisations are supported by at least 10 NGOs of the Middle East, including the Saudi Arabia-based Rabeta Al Islam,' says Kabir, who is also a reputed freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker.

Slapped with sedition charges and put behind bars twice in 2001 and 2002, Kabir has compiled a three-volume publication titled 'Bangladesh-e Sankhyalaghu Nirjataner Ponerosho Diner Swetpatra' (White Paper on 1,500 Days of Torture on Minorities in Bangladesh) to counter the government's denial of atrocities on minority.

'We want an end to these multi-dimensional atrocities and minority-bashing which is unprecedented anywhere in the world. We have not documented a single incident of political violence in this compilation, which has over 300 pictorial descriptions and account of about 2,750 cases of atrocities,' says Kabir, whose compilation was released here recently.

'The government in Bangladesh is neither banning the book nor allowing us to sell it there though in places like New York and London the publication has been launched and organisations like Amnesty International praised us for such a well-documented treatise on human rights violations,' says Kabir.

'We have listed the presence of at least 84 fundamentalist militant organisations in Bangladesh. The country has left even Pakistan way behind in their number,' he says.

'The (corrective) actions taken so far by the government are only under pressure of the West and to show its seriousness to the world about curbing fundamentalism. The arrested fundamentalists are not even interrogated fiercely or chargesheeted properly because even the policemen are afraid of them.

'The government, which itself is run by the fundamentalists, would have to admit first about the atrocities which they are constantly denying,' says Kabir who was once blindfolded and interrogated by police and is made to report to court twice a month.

'I met with an accident some time back and cannot walk without a support. But I am made to climb three storeys of the court building to appear before the judge,' says Kabir.

'I was offered asylum in the West along with my family by Amnesty International. But can they offer asylum to the millions of Hindus in Bangladesh?' he asks.

'In Bangladesh, the secular parties are not united and so far the protest against fundamentalism and minority bashing has come only from civil society and media.'

'The people of Bangladesh in general are not fundamentalists. It was proved in 1971 when Pakistan was defeated but later systematically the country was introduced to Islamic nationalism from a secular democracy following the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975.'

Kabir does not think that the elections in Bangladesh early next year would be free and fair.

'If the elections are free and fair the secular democratic forces would return to power. But all arrangements have been made to rig the polls. The opposition for once is united on this issue as they have refused to fight elections under the present election commissioner who favours the government.'
 
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