Hindu families in Bangladesh even after 71 years paying the cost of partition

NewsBharati    12-Feb-2018
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Faridpur, February 12: It has been 71 years of partition but still now infinite Hindu families of Bangladesh are paying the cost. The Muslim –dominant neighbor of India has always shown a hostile attitude to the Hindu natives of the country. While lakhs of families left Bangladesh leaving behind everything after partition for saving lives, the remaining Hindu minority families are facing the threat every day about which human right activities, as well as international communities, seem less bothered. Here, the non-fictional story of Biswas family who went under a brutal attack will be another example of the present situation over there.

The nightmare of Biswas family:

The incident took place in midnight on 18th January when the family was sleeping peacefully. A group of Muslim goons set a fire in their small house using patrol and other inflammable articles. The perpetrators did not mercy the cattle and set a fire in animals sheds too. The real nightmare woke them up when the destructive fire broke out in the household.

After waking up they saw perpetrators were fleeing towards some unknown destination from the crime spot. Subal Biswas, one of the family member, tried to extinguish the fire but he could not stop the fire, rather got an injury in his hands. But the more dreadful part of the nightmare came up later when he noticed his entire cattle dying. A cow, which costs Taka 1,00,000; a calf of costing Taka 60,000; two male goats of 40000 taka; two mounds of jute of Taka 40,000/- value ; ten mounds of onion cost of taka 30,000/- were totally set ablaze. The innocent family faced a total loss of 8,00,000 Taka.

Case development:

While such cases go unnoticed, in assistance with Bangladesh Minority Watch(BDMW) , a case was filed against the perpetrators. Police arrested two perpetrators namely 1) Rahman Munshi (40) and Md.Enamul Munshi (25).

Two advocates of BDMW, Rabindra Ghosh, Dilip Kumar Ray, visited the spot. They found that among five, three preparators were absconding. After interrogating victims as well as the relatives of perpetrators, it came to surface that those perpetrators captured their cultivable lands having no legal documents. Cases and counter cases are also ongoing in there regarding Hindu-Muslim land dispute.

After urging Thana Nirbahi officer at Madhukhali for proper co-operation, the officers on duty helped. But, but the penal section described in the F.I.R. is far from satisfactory. Exploiting the gap in the law, the accused might get bail soon. They even called local Member of Parliament Md. Abdur Rahman but no help was offered in return after several unanswered phone calls and SMS. BDMW helped the family and insisted on punishing such more perpetrators who are behind such atrocities against Hindu minor families.

Hindu families living under constant threat:

Though Bangladesh got freedom from Pakistan in 1971, till now Hindu families living in Bangladesh remain vulnerable to attacks by anti-liberation forces. 2013 had been the most tragic year of Bangladeshi Hindus. Following the verdict of death sentence of Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, the Vice-President of the Jamaat-e-Islam for war crimes committed during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, violence broke out in the country. Anti-liberation forces vandalized, looted and burned Hindu houses in various districts. Islamist radicalists are continuing such attacks every day. Hindus make up about 11 percent of the population of Bangladesh but the security of this 11% is still now not ensured. The larger objective of these kinds of violence and attack is to grab the land of Hindus rather than being only political. The numerous stories similar to the one of Biswas family are an example of wide-spread religious intolerance against Hindus.