Houses of Hindus attacked in Dinajpur, Thakurgaon

Source: Dhaka Tribune

Witnesses and victims said properties worth almost Tk1 crore were damaged in the attack

 

 

The BNP-Jamaat-led opposition alliance men yesterday vandalised, torched and looted valuables from the houses of Hindus in the northwestern districts of Dinajpur and Thakurgaon. 

The attacks were carried out at the Laad Dabra village under Sator union of Birganj upazila of Dinajpur, reported our correspondent in the district.

Houses of Kailash Roy, Jotish Roy, Jotindro Roy, Promod Charan and former UP chairman Roopnarayn Sheel were smashed in the attack. The house of Md Mamun, son of Khoka Pramanik, was also attacked.

Witnesses and victims said properties worth almost Tk1 crore were damaged in the attack.

On the election day, BNP-Jamaat men attacked nearly all the 80 polling centres in the area. At least 40 educational institutions, which were used as polling centres, had been badly damaged.

In a separate post-election violence, activists of BNP and its ally Jamaat attacked ruling Awami League men and the Hindus in eight villages under Sadar upazila in Thakurgaon district last evening, leaving 15 people injured, reports UNB.

The miscreants also vandalised and looted a number of houses and shops belonging to the ruling party men and the Hindus. A temple in the area and the idols inside were also vandalised during the mayhem.

As a sequel, opposition men launched attacks on ruling party men and Hindus at eight villages including Jhakua, Jhardanga, Baniyapara and Mondoppara last evening.

Soon after the attack, hundreds of local residents, mostly Hindus from the eight villages, fled their homes and took refuge in the adjacent villages fearing further attack by BNP-Jamaat.

UNB also reported that panic had gripped the local residents, especially the Awami League leaders and activists and the Hindus.

Following the incident, local administration reinforced security in the area, deploying joint forces, comprising police, RAB and BGB, to fend off further trouble.

Witnesses and victims said properties worth almost Tk1 crore were damaged in the attack

•  

The BNP-Jamaat-led opposition alliance men yesterday vandalised, torched and looted valuables from the houses of Hindus in the northwestern districts of Dinajpur and Thakurgaon.
The attacks were carried out at the Laad Dabra village under Sator union of Birganj upazila of Dinajpur, reported our correspondent in the district.
Houses of Kailash Roy, Jotish Roy, Jotindro Roy, Promod Charan and former UP chairman Roopnarayn Sheel were smashed in the attack. The house of Md Mamun, son of Khoka Pramanik, was also attacked.
Witnesses and victims said properties worth almost Tk1 crore were damaged in the attack.
On the election day, BNP-Jamaat men attacked nearly all the 80 polling centres in the area. At least 40 educational institutions, which were used as polling centres, had been badly damaged.
In a separate post-election violence, activists of BNP and its ally Jamaat attacked ruling Awami League men and the Hindus in eight villages under Sadar upazila in Thakurgaon district last evening, leaving 15 people injured, reports UNB.
The miscreants also vandalised and looted a number of houses and shops belonging to the ruling party men and the Hindus. A temple in the area and the idols inside were also vandalised during the mayhem.
As a sequel, opposition men launched attacks on ruling party men and Hindus at eight villages including Jhakua, Jhardanga, Baniyapara and Mondoppara last evening.
Soon after the attack, hundreds of local residents, mostly Hindus from the eight villages, fled their homes and took refuge in the adjacent villages fearing further attack by BNP-Jamaat.
UNB also reported that panic had gripped the local residents, especially the Awami League leaders and activists and the Hindus.
Following the incident, local administration reinforced security in the area, deploying joint forces, comprising police, RAB and BGB, to fend off further trouble.

- See more at: http://www.dhakatribune.com/crime/2014/jan/07/houses-hindus-attacked-dinajpur-thakurgaon#sthash.LvlUYyyR.dpuf

Protect the Hindus, urge social groups

Source: Dhaka Tribune

They also urged the government to pay compensation to the affected families

Condemning the recent communal attacks on Hindu localities and temples at different areas of the country, a number of organisations yesterday slammed the government for not taking effective actions to ensure security of the religious minorities.
They also urged the government to pay compensation to the affected families.
Several organisations also formed a human chain in front of the National Press Club protesting the attacks that took place in many places including Jessore, Dinajpur, Gaibandha, Satkhira and Chittagong districts.
The participants brought festoons which read “Stand up against attack, oppression, persecution, atrocities on minorities.” Members of Sammilito Sangskritik Jote joined the human chain holding black flags.
Noted actor Ramendu Majumdar told the Dhaka Tribune: “It is the main responsibility of the government to stop persecution against the Hindus. Citizens’ protest is a must to put an end to such attacks.”
Z Tariq Ali, a social worker and adviser of the Liberation War Museum, told the Dhaka Tribune: “I am ashamed. We do not want to see Bangladesh as a country of Muslims. It is a country where people of all religions will get same facilities.”
Joyonto Sen Dipu, Presidium member of Bangladesh Hindu-Buddha-Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC), said the Hindus should not be treated this way as they are also citizens of Bangladesh.
During the programme, some activists of Jaago Hindu wanted to block Topkhana Road but were resisted by Nirmal Chatterje, joint general secretary of BHBCUC.
Among others, Jatiya Mohashoshan Committee, Bangladesh Jatiya Hindu Maitree Parishad, Santana Vidyarthi Samsad, students of Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh National Hindu Youth Grand Alliance and Bangladesh Chhatra Jubo Oikya Parishad joined the human chain.
They will bring out a black flag rally on Saturday and hold a gathering in front of the Shaheed Minar.
In a press release, Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee and Moulobad O Samprodayikota Birodhi Dokkin Asia Gono Sommilon demanded strict steps to resist the BNP-Jamaat attackers and bring the attackers to book.
The signatories were Justice Mohammad Golam Rabbani, Justice Syed Amirul Islam, writer Syed Shamsul Haque, journalist Kamal Lohani, litterateur Hasan Azizul Haque, writer Shahriar Kabir, Prof Muntasir Mamun, Shaheedjaya Shyamoli Nasrin Chowdhury, sculptor Ferdousi Priyobhashini and others.
Gonojagoron Moncho, in a press statement signed by its Convener Imran H Sarkar, urged the government to from a separate law to prevent communal attacks and ensure punishment of the perpetrators. The platform also asked the government to pay compensation to the affected families.
It will organise a road march from Dhaka to Malopara, Jessore on January 10 and January 11 protesting the communal attacks.
Nasiruddin Yusuf Bachchu, president of Sammilito Sangskritik Jote, told the Dhaka Tribune that a team of the organisation would visit the affected areas at Obhoynagar in Jessore on Friday.
Several social organisations including “Amra” – a platform of activists of Shahbagh movement – are set to demonstrate in the capital’s Paltan and Shahbagh intersection today demanding punishment of the culprits, and compensation for the affected people.
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in a statement demanded judicial inquiry into the attacks and exemplary punishment of the perpetrators. The anti-graft body also asked the government to take all possible administrative and legal measures to stop immediately recurrence of such incidents.
Expressing concern over the recent attacks and possibility of further attacks, Shushanar Janniya Nagorik (SHUJAN) urged the government and the people to stand against communal attacks.
Communist Party of Bangladesh and Bangladesh Khetmojur Samity in separate press statements slammed the government for its failure to foil the planned attacks on Hindus in different areas.
A number of organisations also demonstrated outside Dhaka condemning the attacks.

They also urged the government to pay compensation to the affected families

Condemning the recent communal attacks on Hindu localities and temples at different areas of the country, a number of organisations yesterday slammed the government for not taking effective actions to ensure security of the religious minorities.
They also urged the government to pay compensation to the affected families.
Several organisations also formed a human chain in front of the National Press Club protesting the attacks that took place in many places including Jessore, Dinajpur, Gaibandha, Satkhira and Chittagong districts.
The participants brought festoons which read “Stand up against attack, oppression, persecution, atrocities on minorities.” Members of Sammilito Sangskritik Jote joined the human chain holding black flags.
Noted actor Ramendu Majumdar told the Dhaka Tribune: “It is the main responsibility of the government to stop persecution against the Hindus. Citizens’ protest is a must to put an end to such attacks.”
Z Tariq Ali, a social worker and adviser of the Liberation War Museum, told the Dhaka Tribune: “I am ashamed. We do not want to see Bangladesh as a country of Muslims. It is a country where people of all religions will get same facilities.”
Joyonto Sen Dipu, Presidium member of Bangladesh Hindu-Buddha-Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC), said the Hindus should not be treated this way as they are also citizens of Bangladesh.
During the programme, some activists of Jaago Hindu wanted to block Topkhana Road but were resisted by Nirmal Chatterje, joint general secretary of BHBCUC.
Among others, Jatiya Mohashoshan Committee, Bangladesh Jatiya Hindu Maitree Parishad, Santana Vidyarthi Samsad, students of Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh National Hindu Youth Grand Alliance and Bangladesh Chhatra Jubo Oikya Parishad joined the human chain.
They will bring out a black flag rally on Saturday and hold a gathering in front of the Shaheed Minar.
In a press release, Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee and Moulobad O Samprodayikota Birodhi Dokkin Asia Gono Sommilon demanded strict steps to resist the BNP-Jamaat attackers and bring the attackers to book.
The signatories were Justice Mohammad Golam Rabbani, Justice Syed Amirul Islam, writer Syed Shamsul Haque, journalist Kamal Lohani, litterateur Hasan Azizul Haque, writer Shahriar Kabir, Prof Muntasir Mamun, Shaheedjaya Shyamoli Nasrin Chowdhury, sculptor Ferdousi Priyobhashini and others.
Gonojagoron Moncho, in a press statement signed by its Convener Imran H Sarkar, urged the government to from a separate law to prevent communal attacks and ensure punishment of the perpetrators. The platform also asked the government to pay compensation to the affected families.
It will organise a road march from Dhaka to Malopara, Jessore on January 10 and January 11 protesting the communal attacks.
Nasiruddin Yusuf Bachchu, president of Sammilito Sangskritik Jote, told the Dhaka Tribune that a team of the organisation would visit the affected areas at Obhoynagar in Jessore on Friday.
Several social organisations including “Amra” – a platform of activists of Shahbagh movement – are set to demonstrate in the capital’s Paltan and Shahbagh intersection today demanding punishment of the culprits, and compensation for the affected people.
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in a statement demanded judicial inquiry into the attacks and exemplary punishment of the perpetrators. The anti-graft body also asked the government to take all possible administrative and legal measures to stop immediately recurrence of such incidents.
Expressing concern over the recent attacks and possibility of further attacks, Shushanar Janniya Nagorik (SHUJAN) urged the government and the people to stand against communal attacks.
Communist Party of Bangladesh and Bangladesh Khetmojur Samity in separate press statements slammed the government for its failure to foil the planned attacks on Hindus in different areas.
A number of organisations also demonstrated outside Dhaka condemning the attacks. 

- See more at: http://www.dhakatribune.com/law-amp-rights/2014/jan/08/protect-hindus-urge-social-groups#sthash.mrhT0Tg5.dpuf

Hindus feeling more insecure by the minute

Source: The Dhaka Tribune

Many of the over hundred families living in the area have sent their women and children to the houses of their relatives in the neighbouring villages

 

• Members of Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council form a human chain in front of the National Press Club yesterday protesting against violence Photo- Rajib Dhar

It has been more than 24 hours in which 62-year old Harendra Nath Roy, caretaker of the Parapukur Shamshan Mandir in Patgram village in Lalmonirhat district, has not said a word. Instead, he has been crying incessantly since Monday night.

Nobody knows what happened to him. The only thing they know is that Harendra was kept confined to his house inside the temple from 9pm-11pm on Monday night, allegedly by a group of 20-25 Jamaat-Shibir men.

Local residents said the confinement of Harendra was just a continuation of the two previous rounds of assault by Jamaat-Shibir men on the local Hindus on October 27 and January 4.

The elderly caretaker of the temple could easily be one of the very few Hindu adults available in the area because the rest have mostly fled their homes after being attacked  as threats escalated, especially in the few days before the January 5 elections.

Many of those, who are still in the area, go to the houses of their Muslim acquaintances to stay over for the night. They only come back home during the daytime. Many of the over one hundred families living in the area have sent their women and children to the houses of their relatives in the neighbouring villages.

Even if they gather the courage to come back to their homes during daytime, none from the community dares to tread anywhere near the Shafinagar village market. The market has been under the control of BNP-Jamaat men following a clash with Awami League men on the eve of the election day in which two BNP men were killed.

Shefali Rani Sen, 38, a resident of the Hindu-dominated Senpara area has been living in one of her relatives’ house in the neighbouring village with her two teenage sons since Sunday’s polls. Her husband has fled home after the polls fearing attack by Jamaat-Shibir men.

“No Hindu was involved with the clash that took place on January 4. But it is always us [the Hindus] who the Jamaat-Shibir men target,” Shefali said.

Local Union Parishad Member Anil Chandra Sen said he too had not been living at home since the polls, and that he had already informed police about their predicament.

Amiruzzaman, OC of the Patgram police station, said the joint forces had been patrolling the villages since before the polls to resist terror by Jamaat-Shibir and BNP men. Additional police remain stationed in the area, especially during night. “The local Hindus panic because they do not see the patrolling law enforcers because of the dense fog.”

Gaibandha

On Monday night, a group of miscreants, all allegedly BNP-Jamaat men, vandalised and torched the house of a Hindu family and five shops, all owned by Hindus, in the Beradanga Bazaar area in Gaibandha. The attack left a Hindu men seriously injured.

Two men, including BNP leader and local UP Chairman Rafiqul Islam Sarker Tara, were injured in the clash that ensued after local Awami League men counterattacked.

Admitted to separate hospitals in the district, their conditions were stated to be critical.

Sources said the opposition men attacked the houses of Noni Gopal Karmakar and Naresh Karmakar around 7pm on Monday because they went to cast votes in Sunday’s elections, defying threats.

Yesterday morning, leaders and activists of the local unit Awami League, and its youth front Jubo league, made a counterattack against the BNP-Jamaat men, leaving the UP chairman injured.

The entire locality has been gripped by panic since the skirmishes, as the local BNP-Jamaat men brought out a procession protesting the counterattack by the ruling party men. 

Many of the over hundred families living in the area have sent their women and children to the houses of their relatives in the neighbouring villages

• Members of Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council form a human chain in front of the National Press Club yesterday protesting against violence 
  Photo- Rajib Dhar

It has been more than 24 hours in which 62-year old Harendra Nath Roy, caretaker of the Parapukur Shamshan Mandir in Patgram village in Lalmonirhat district, has not said a word. Instead, he has been crying incessantly since Monday night.
Nobody knows what happened to him. The only thing they know is that Harendra was kept confined to his house inside the temple from 9pm-11pm on Monday night, allegedly by a group of 20-25 Jamaat-Shibir men.
Local residents said the confinement of Harendra was just a continuation of the two previous rounds of assault by Jamaat-Shibir men on the local Hindus on October 27 and January 4.
The elderly caretaker of the temple could easily be one of the very few Hindu adults available in the area because the rest have mostly fled their homes after being attacked  as threats escalated, especially in the few days before the January 5 elections.
Many of those, who are still in the area, go to the houses of their Muslim acquaintances to stay over for the night. They only come back home during the daytime. Many of the over one hundred families living in the area have sent their women and children to the houses of their relatives in the neighbouring villages.
Even if they gather the courage to come back to their homes during daytime, none from the community dares to tread anywhere near the Shafinagar village market. The market has been under the control of BNP-Jamaat men following a clash with Awami League men on the eve of the election day in which two BNP men were killed.
Shefali Rani Sen, 38, a resident of the Hindu-dominated Senpara area has been living in one of her relatives’ house in the neighbouring village with her two teenage sons since Sunday’s polls. Her husband has fled home after the polls fearing attack by Jamaat-Shibir men.
“No Hindu was involved with the clash that took place on January 4. But it is always us [the Hindus] who the Jamaat-Shibir men target,” Shefali said.
Local Union Parishad Member Anil Chandra Sen said he too had not been living at home since the polls, and that he had already informed police about their predicament.
Amiruzzaman, OC of the Patgram police station, said the joint forces had been patrolling the villages since before the polls to resist terror by Jamaat-Shibir and BNP men. Additional police remain stationed in the area, especially during night. “The local Hindus panic because they do not see the patrolling law enforcers because of the dense fog.”
Gaibandha
On Monday night, a group of miscreants, all allegedly BNP-Jamaat men, vandalised and torched the house of a Hindu family and five shops, all owned by Hindus, in the Beradanga Bazaar area in Gaibandha. The attack left a Hindu men seriously injured.
Two men, including BNP leader and local UP Chairman Rafiqul Islam Sarker Tara, were injured in the clash that ensued after local Awami League men counterattacked.
Admitted to separate hospitals in the district, their conditions were stated to be critical.
Sources said the opposition men attacked the houses of Noni Gopal Karmakar and Naresh Karmakar around 7pm on Monday because they went to cast votes in Sunday’s elections, defying threats.
Yesterday morning, leaders and activists of the local unit Awami League, and its youth front Jubo league, made a counterattack against the BNP-Jamaat men, leaving the UP chairman injured.
The entire locality has been gripped by panic since the skirmishes, as the local BNP-Jamaat men brought out a procession protesting the counterattack by the ruling party men. 

- See more at: http://www.dhakatribune.com/law-amp-rights/2014/jan/08/hindus-feeling-more-insecure-minute#sthash.QtM5Y9hA.dpuf

Many of the over hundred families living in the area have sent their women and children to the houses of their relatives in the neighbouring villages

• Members of Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council form a human chain in front of the National Press Club yesterday protesting against violence 
  Photo- Rajib Dhar

It has been more than 24 hours in which 62-year old Harendra Nath Roy, caretaker of the Parapukur Shamshan Mandir in Patgram village in Lalmonirhat district, has not said a word. Instead, he has been crying incessantly since Monday night.
Nobody knows what happened to him. The only thing they know is that Harendra was kept confined to his house inside the temple from 9pm-11pm on Monday night, allegedly by a group of 20-25 Jamaat-Shibir men.
Local residents said the confinement of Harendra was just a continuation of the two previous rounds of assault by Jamaat-Shibir men on the local Hindus on October 27 and January 4.
The elderly caretaker of the temple could easily be one of the very few Hindu adults available in the area because the rest have mostly fled their homes after being attacked  as threats escalated, especially in the few days before the January 5 elections.
Many of those, who are still in the area, go to the houses of their Muslim acquaintances to stay over for the night. They only come back home during the daytime. Many of the over one hundred families living in the area have sent their women and children to the houses of their relatives in the neighbouring villages.
Even if they gather the courage to come back to their homes during daytime, none from the community dares to tread anywhere near the Shafinagar village market. The market has been under the control of BNP-Jamaat men following a clash with Awami League men on the eve of the election day in which two BNP men were killed.
Shefali Rani Sen, 38, a resident of the Hindu-dominated Senpara area has been living in one of her relatives’ house in the neighbouring village with her two teenage sons since Sunday’s polls. Her husband has fled home after the polls fearing attack by Jamaat-Shibir men.
“No Hindu was involved with the clash that took place on January 4. But it is always us [the Hindus] who the Jamaat-Shibir men target,” Shefali said.
Local Union Parishad Member Anil Chandra Sen said he too had not been living at home since the polls, and that he had already informed police about their predicament.
Amiruzzaman, OC of the Patgram police station, said the joint forces had been patrolling the villages since before the polls to resist terror by Jamaat-Shibir and BNP men. Additional police remain stationed in the area, especially during night. “The local Hindus panic because they do not see the patrolling law enforcers because of the dense fog.”
Gaibandha
On Monday night, a group of miscreants, all allegedly BNP-Jamaat men, vandalised and torched the house of a Hindu family and five shops, all owned by Hindus, in the Beradanga Bazaar area in Gaibandha. The attack left a Hindu men seriously injured.
Two men, including BNP leader and local UP Chairman Rafiqul Islam Sarker Tara, were injured in the clash that ensued after local Awami League men counterattacked.
Admitted to separate hospitals in the district, their conditions were stated to be critical.
Sources said the opposition men attacked the houses of Noni Gopal Karmakar and Naresh Karmakar around 7pm on Monday because they went to cast votes in Sunday’s elections, defying threats.
Yesterday morning, leaders and activists of the local unit Awami League, and its youth front Jubo league, made a counterattack against the BNP-Jamaat men, leaving the UP chairman injured.
The entire locality has been gripped by panic since the skirmishes, as the local BNP-Jamaat men brought out a procession protesting the counterattack by the ruling party men. 

- See more at: http://www.dhakatribune.com/law-amp-rights/2014/jan/08/hindus-feeling-more-insecure-minute#sthash.QtM5Y9hA.dpuf

Bangladesh post-poll violence hits minorities

Source: The Hindu

Attacks remind people of the horror unleashed by Pakistani forces 43 years ago

The January 5 elections in Bangladesh have again reminded the vulnerable minority community of the brutal treatment it received 43 years ago at the hands of marauding Pakistani forces and their local cohorts.

Bangladesh media reports suggest that Hindus in particular have become easy targets of anti-election activists who attacked their houses and other properties, thinking that they voted for the ruling Awami League and did not heed their directive to refrain from voting .

The attacks, most of which took place in the post-election period, have forced hundreds of minority members to flee their houses, according to newspapers published from Dhaka. Systematic attacks were carried out by activists of the Opposition BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami, the party which had violently opposed the independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971.

Most of the attacks took place in the minority dominated villages in the northern districts of Thakurgaon, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Bogra, Lalmonirhat, Gaibandha, Rajshahi, the southern district of Chittagong and western Jessore.

Leading daily Ittefaq reported: “The Jamaat-Shibir cadres launched despicable attacks on Hindu communities in four districts the day after the 10th parliamentary elections. Hundreds of houses of the minority community were torched and looted since Sunday night in Dinjapur, Jessore, Satkhira and Thakurgaon. A large number of Hindus took shelter in the temples, while others have fled to other villages. They are too scared to return even after assurances from local administration.”

The daily reported, along with pictures, that residents of at least eight unions in different upazillas of Dinajpur district were the worst sufferers.

In Jessore, the miscreants vandalised at least 46 Hindu houses and establishments and torched six others on Sunday night, alleging that the minority people had voted for the Awami League. In Thakurgaon, the Jamaat-led terrorists unleashed violence on the religious minorities. Jamaat-Shibir and BNP activists went on the rampage, damaging and looting 65 houses and 30 shops and setting afire paddies stored on courtyards in several homes.

In western Satkhira, a traditional Jamaat stronghold, Jamaat-BNP men resorted to attacks with sharp weapons, sticks and iron rods. Several hundred Hindus and Awami League leaders have fled their homes in the past few days.

Giving on-the-spot coverage of the incidents, condemned by civil society and newspapers, The Daily Star reported that Hindus were still vulnerable to attacks by “anti-liberation forces” like in 1971 when they were targeted by the Pakistan army and their local cohorts.

The rampage reminds Doyamoy Sarkar, a villager, of the atrocities committed by Pakistani occupation forces and their collaborators in 1971, reported the daily. “We left our house in 1971 as Pakistan army and razakars set our village on fire. And we are passing through the same ordeal in 2014,” he said.

About 700 elderly and young women, men and children of Malopara took shelter at Deyapara village across the Bhairab river. About 100 houses of Hindus were vandalised and torched.

Activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, in their hundreds carried out the massive destruction for two hours in the Hindu village for “violating” their order not to go to the polling booth.

Correspondents of national newspapers, during a visit on Tuesday, found that about 1,200 people from Hindu families of Gopalpur village were sheltered at a temple.

In Dinajpur, at least 350 houses and 50 shops in five villages were damaged, set ablaze and looted. According to the locals, around 2,000 Jamaat-Shibir men, armed with sharp weapons and sticks, launched the attack on Kornai village on Sunday. Several hundred men, women and children fled their homes.

In Chittagong, Hindus are under threat following attacks on poll night in Satkania, Loahagara and Banshkhali upazillas, considered a stronghold of the Jamaat-Shibir. In Loahagara, Jamaat-Shibir men vandalised and looted several shops owned by Hindus at Hindur Haat.

Why Hindus always under assault?

Source: The Daily Star

Bangladesh's Hindu community once again is under grievous assault.
In the aftermath of the recent general elections, hundreds of Hindus have fled their homes in such regions as Thakurgaon, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Bogra, Lalmonirhat, Rajshahi, Jessore and Chittagong.
Once again, there is an eerie reminder of the trauma the Bangalee nation, especially its Hindu segment, faced in the course of the War of Liberation when the occupation Pakistan army and its local collaborators went after the proponents of Bangalee nationalism.
A very large-scale exodus of Hindus took place at the time of the partition of India in August 1947, when for understandable reasons it became a question of the survival of the community in a country fashioned out of a so-called two-nation theory.
Three years later, in 1950, communal riots led to a newer group of Hindus leaving what was then East Pakistan and making their way to neighbouring West Bengal in India.
In 1964, through the instigation of the Ayub-Monem clique in Pakistan, more Hindus left East Pakistan. The crisis was contained only when a secular Bangalee political leadership, among whom was the future Bangabandhu, put up a determined resistance against communalism and succeeded in containing what might have become a conflagration.
In 1971, the Pakistan army went with a vengeance after Bangladesh's Hindus, an outrage that was to go on for nine long months. In the process, the soldiers not only killed such revered Hindu figures as Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta, Govinda Chandra Dev, Dhirendranath Dutta and others but also mowed down hundreds of Hindu students who resided at Jagannath Hall of Dhaka University.
Things ought to have been different in independent Bangladesh. And yet, in post-1975 circumstances, the country's Hindu community once again became a target of assault, in many instances through the subtle and not-so-subtle encouragement of the ruling classes. Over these past four decades, many more Hindus have left Bangladesh, with most trekking off to India. The more fortunate ones, in terms of academic excellence or economic strength, have made their homes in the developed world.
Today, the country's Hindu population, which in 1971 numbered as high as 25 per cent of the total population, has declined appallingly to below 10 per cent. Hindu homes have been vandalised for close to four decades; Hindu temples have been destroyed; Hindu-owned property has been looted systematically; Hindus have been looked upon as Indian agents.
Today, it is with a huge degree of shame that one must recount the havoc wreaked on Hindus following the electoral triumph of the BNP-Jamaat alliance in October 2001. Supporters of the alliance went on a rampage, beating and raping and killing Hindus in no fewer than 2,500 villages in the country. No action was taken against the marauders.
Our grievance is that even today, with the conclusion of the general election of January 5, Hindus all over the country cower in fear of elements which have been threatening them since before the voting. As our news reports over the past few days have made it clear, there were patent threats held out against the community in various regions of the country.
Why were these threats not taken seriously by the administration? Where were the measures that should have ensured their security as citizens of Bangladesh? In the aftermath of the elections, once they came under attack from the BNP-Jamaat-Shibir cadres, frantic appeals went out to the police for help.
No response came. Neither was there any move on the part of the Awami League or its alliance partners to go to the rescue of the endangered Hindus.
We bow our heads in deep shame at what has systematically been done to our fellow citizens only because they pursue a faith different from that of the majority religious denomination. Our sense of shame sinks deeper in the knowledge that hardly any individual of repute or   any organisation professing its belief in secular democracy, has come forward to condemn this brutalisation of the Hindu community and to resist the menace of communalism in the country.
It is now for the state of Bangladesh to reassure its Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and its indigenous people that this country is a secular geographical entity, that it is home to all its people, that an attack on one community is an attack on every community, that those who from now on attempt to humiliate any community will be dealt with summarily and with an iron hand.
The state must not fail again. If it does, this country will stand guilty of indulging in ethnic cleansing.