‘Minorities targeted, bid to rewrite history in Bangladesh, take revenge for 1971 events’

As the new dispensation in Dhaka comes under increasing criticism for attacks on minorities in the wake of the regime change, the plight of the 19 minority MPs of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League is a telling story.

After the dissolution of Parliament, three of them were sent to jail; most of the others are in hiding, in and outside the country.

Among those sent to jail were veteran Awami League leaders and former Cabinet Ministers: Ramesh Chandra Sen, Narayan Chandra, and Sadhan Chandra Majumdar.

Awami League leaders The Indian Express spoke to say there were around 2,000 incidents of arson, loot and burning involving the minorities (Hindus, Buddhists and Christians) between August 5 and August 20, 2024 and “scattered attacks” were still taking place every day.

According to Pankaj Nath, three-time MP from Barishal constituency (a former general secretary of the Bangladesh Awami Volunteers League, he fought the 2024 elections as an independent), almost all minority MPs have witnessed attacks on their properties and have had their bank accounts frozen.

Nath’s residence in Dhaka was among them and while he himself is underground, his family, too, is “taking precautions” moving from “place to place” in Bangladesh. His personal anguish continues as he could not attend the last rites of his mother when she passed away on December 28.

On the continuing persecution of minorities and Dhaka’s request for extradition of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Nath said: “If Sheikh Hasina announces that she will return to Bangladesh, will the interim Government be ready to receive her? Millions will rush to the border and the Government will not be able to handle the situation.”

“It is very clear,” Nath said, “that there is an attempt to rewrite history and take revenge for the historic events of 1971. The caretaker Government, led by Muhammad Yunus, is patronizing the attacks on minorities. Besides the rest of the international community, we now look to India to stop these crimes and restore equal rights of the minorities.”

Last December, in the first high-level visit by India since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led government, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met his Bangladesh counterpart in Dhaka and conveyed “India’s concerns, especially those related to the safety and welfare of minorities”. India also flagged “some regrettable incidents of attacks on cultural, religious and diplomatic properties”.

Referring to the alleged incidents against minorities as “propaganda… false and misleading facts”, Bangladesh’s Foreign Secretary, on his part, responded that “other countries” should refrain from commenting on Dhaka’s “internal matter”.

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More

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