DHAKA: A senior minority leader from Bangladesh on Friday, November 1, 2024 partially supported former US President Donald Trump’s Deepwali message where he condemned the atrocities faced by Hindus in Bangladesh, especially after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government.
Subrata Chowdhury, a Presidium member of the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddha, Christians Okkay Parishad said, “It is partially correct. Because of the recent occurrences after 5th August, there are politically motivated occurrences. About 60 per cent of occurrences were reported with those who were the supporters of the then Sheikh Hasina regime. Most of the victims belong to the Awami League”, he said.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump condemned the “barbaric violence” against Hindus in Bangladesh and slammed Kamala Harris and Joe Biden in his Diwali message, saying they “ignored” them across the world and in America.
Donald Trump said, “I strongly condemn the barbaric violence against Hindus, Christians, and other minorities who are getting attacked and looted by mobs in Bangladesh, which remains in a total state of chaos.”
“It would have never happened on my watch. Kamala and Joe have ignored Hindus across the world and in America,” the former US President wrote on X. Chowdhury, while exclusively speaking to ANI, said, “In addition to that there are some miscreants or communal forces who targeted the Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians community.”
“In the last 15 years, in many occurrences, all the victims were Hindus, Buddhists, Christians. At that time, no cases were filed against the miscreants. They were not prosecuted by the then regime. Even the law enforcing agencies and administration took part with the miscreants,” he said.
“We hope this time every occurrence should be tried by the law-enforcing agencies. We want to see the activism of the judiciary so that no one can be exempted from any anti-Hindus, Buddhist, and Christian activities. This time Chief Adviser also assured us that they will try all miscreants and every miscreant will be punished,” said Chowdhury, who is also a senior lawyer of the Bangladesh Supreme Court.
He alleged that false cases are used as weapons to target minorities. “Some incidents are still going on in some places because there are so many demonstrations by the Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians.”
He said, “Some people in the society do not like it. They are trying to attack the demonstrations not physically but by filing cases against these forces, who are on the street or who took part in a mass gathering.”
Chowdhury also noted that recently there was an incident in Chittagong, where a big gathering raised its voice against communalism. Similar gatherings took place in Dhaka also.
He said, “But in one incident in Chittagong, a person filed a case against some monks and Shadus. We are raising the subject to save the persons who have been implicated in the cases. We also took measures against the filing of false cases against Sadhu, Sannashis.”
“The situation is improving and you know during mass movement and after the fall of Hasina’s regime, there was no administration, there were no law enforcing agencies, some police stations were vacated by the police force, so there was a serious law and order situation in the whole country,” he said.
“Not only the minority, but all citizens were passing through their lives in an alarming situation. Now the situation is going to normal day by day. Law enforcement agencies are very much present in all the police stations. The administration also took so many steps so that there is no law and order situation time and again. I hope the administration should act as usual,” said Chowdhury who was also a former President of Puja Celebrations Committee of Bangladesh.
Accepting that there have been problems in the country and areas which require reforms, he said that in the last 53 years, people had been suffering problems such as Rule of law, human rights issues, judiciary and even election process issues.”
Two months ago, a student-led movement ousted Bangladesh’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, after weeks of protests and clashes that killed over 600 people. Hasina, 76, fled to India on August 5 and an interim government led by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus was formed. (With inputs from ANI).
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