Demanding justice for the persecuted Hindus of Bangladesh, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) wrote to different international bodies with a charter of demands.
The violence against Hindus in Bangladesh, which started on October 13, is continuing unabated. In the last 12 days, brutal killings and violence & vandalism targeting Hindus have continued.
In the letters to the world bodies, the VHP demanded that an international inquiry commission be set up, and a fact-finding team be sent to Bangladesh to ascertain the situation on the ground.
It also urged the government of Bangladesh to “repeal the Vested Property Act – 2013, which is the critical underlying incitement to violence since property abandoned by the fleeing can be legally seized by their own neighbours”.
The Joint General Secretary and head of international affairs at VHP, Swami Vigyananand said, “These world bodies must setup an Int’l enquiry commission and send a fact-finding mission to Bangladesh, pressurise the Govt of Bangladesh to ensure security, justice and compensation to the victims.”
The statement read Swami Vigyananand “seeks to give Exemplary punishment to the perpetrators of crime and take action to proscribe criminal Jihadi organisations and repeal the Vested Property Act 2013”.
Describing the atrocities on Hindus, he said, “The brutal killings of innocents, in more than 22 districts over the past 10-12 days, violate any notion of humanity. The radical Islamists caused despair and terror among devotees by forcibly entering places of worship during the sacred Durga Puja and jubilantly vandalising and breaking icons of deities and destroying shrines.”
Further elaborating on the atrocities committed by the Islamists, he said, “A dozen Hindus were slaughtered, a thousand injured. Horrifyingly, Hindu women and small girls were raped in front of family members and homes and businesses were looted and burnt as well. The police and law enforcement authorities were mute spectators, intervening too late to prevent the atrocities.”
Hindus are being slaughtered in the region for over a century now, and “a final chapter of their destruction is occurring in full view of the world.”
“During the partition of India in 1947, an estimated 2 million Hindus in the eastern half of Bengal were killed and countless millions fled to India. These horrors continued, with one million Hindus killed again in 1950 and another five million fleeing to safety in India. with thousands slaughtered in 1964, prompting another surge of fleeing refugees”, Swami Vigyananand said.
The result of this sustained persecution has been that the “population of the mainly Hindu minority in Bangladesh, which was almost a third at partition in 1947, has declined to approximately 8% and respected Bangladeshi demographers predict it will fall to zero by 2050”.
Earlier, the VHP demanded the Union government to talk tough with the Bangladesh Government and send a fact-finding team of MPs (Members of Parliament) to Bangladesh.
Social media platform Twitter had earlier deleted the accounts of ISKCON Bangladesh and Bangladesh Hindu Unity Council, the two handles reporting about the anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh.
The targeted violence against Hindus started on October 13 when fake news was spread that a copy of the Quran was desecrated in one of the Durga pooja pandals.
On October 15, when Hindus were celebrating Dussehra, a mob of more than 200 Muslims attacked the ISKCON temple in Noakhali. Four devotees lost their lives in the attack, and the temple was vandalised.
Later, the police investigation revealed that the copy of the Quran was placed in one of the pooja pandals by one Iqbal Hossain.
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