A student protest against Dipu’s murder, in Dhaka last month
NEW DELHI: Slamming the Muhammad Yunus-led interim govt over the relentless attacks on minorities – including Hindus – and their properties in Bangladesh, and for watering down the incidents, India on Friday said attempts to whitewash the communal intent behind the crimes and attribute these to “personal rivalries and political differences” only “emboldens the perpetrators”. Seven Hindu men have been killed in Bangladesh since Dec 18 – the day garment factory worker Dipu Chandra Das was lynched and his body hanged from a tree and set ablaze in Mymensingh, a killing that India described as “horrendous” and “barbaric”. Of the seven, three, including a journalist, were killed this week. “We continue to witness a disturbing pattern of recurring attacks on minorities as well as their homes and businesses by extremists. Such communal incidents need to be dealt with swiftly and firmly,” ministry of external affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in his weekly briefing. The others killed in violence against Hindus were Amrit Mandal (Dec 24); factory security guard Bajendra Biswas (Dec 29); businessman Khokon Chandra Das (Dec 31); journalist Rana Pratap and businessman Moni Chakraborty (Monday); and Mithun Sarkar (Tuesday). In a briefing following the lynching of Mandal, who Dhaka said was a “listed criminal”, Jaiswal on Dec 26 said over 2,900 incidents of violence against minorities, including cases of killings, arson, and land grab, had been documented by independent sources during the tenure of the interim govt and these incidents could not be brushed aside as mere media exaggeration or dismissed as political violence. The Yunus-led administration has repeatedly dismissed India’s concerns as propaganda by Indian media. The internal situation deteriorated in Bangladesh after the death of radical leader and India-baiter Sharif Osman Hadi on Dec 18, a prominent face of the 2024 anti-govt protests that led to then PM Sheikh Hasina abdicating and fleeing to India.
