Too little, too late to protect Hindus in sectarian violence

Slain Dilip Das left behind his wife Rupa Das, daughter Priya Das and son Partha Das - Photo: Saleem Samad

SALEEM SAMAD

Law enforcement’s lack of response during the Cumilla riots lead to greater escalation

Dilip Das, 62, was a commercial washerman for the Sadar Hospital and other clinics in Cumilla. For nearly 30 years, he laundered hospital bed sheets and linens.

When pedestrians rushed Dilip to the emergency department of the hospital, he was not attended to. His family shifted him to the 250-bed government hospital, where again he was left unattended. For six hours, he did not get medical care in Cumilla hospitals. His condition deteriorated as his forehead wound was bleeding.

Dilip’s wife Rupa Das did not expect to hear the tragic news in her life. The sky had fallen on her head. She was not aware that rioters had gone berserk in the city.

At Dhaka Medical College Hospital, the surgeons and physicians struggled for eight days to treat the patient who had gone into a coma from a fatal brain haemorrhage. His daughter Priya Rani Das, 25, said the brain surgeons had twice operated upon him in Dhaka.

She also said that he was struck with full force with a metal bar by Islamic vigilantes, which badly fractured his forehead skull, and he sank into a coma. She dashed from her house at Thana Road, accompanied by Ruma Das, sister of Dilip.

The armed vigilantes had taken positions in the streets and the intersection became dangerous for Hindus to venture out. She and Ruma were desperate to reach the hospital.

The vigilantes, mostly teenagers with machetes, bamboo sticks, and metal bars, threatened them to cut them into pieces. They yelled at her -- how dare they desecrate the Holy Quran?

Ruma told the youths, “You can kill us, but we need to go to the hospital for the emergency treatment of my elder brother.” Rupa had no clue about what had happened at Nanua Dighirpar Puja mandap in the morning when all hell had been let loose in Cumilla.

On that ominous day, Dilip went to Rajeshwari temple in Manoharpur to clean the premises as a volunteer. He told his wife not to cook for him as he would have prasad (religious offering of food) at the temple. At noon, he was walking towards Darogabari Mazar, a tomb of a Sufi saint, to clean the premises. He was caught in the violence near the temple. The vigilantes caught him and, with a metal bar, fractured his skull.

The residents of the city had not experienced such rage in 50 years, since the genocidal campaign by marauding the Pakistan military in March 1971.

While Dilip was fighting for his life in the hospital at Dhaka, the neighbours offered milad and dua mehfil (prayers) in at least two mosques and several Muslim homes for his early recovery. The neighbours mourned his death.

He was adored by thousands for his volunteerism at temples, mosques, and the shrines of Sufi saints. He had respect for all religions, but had given his life to the brutalities of Islamic vigilantes with political clout.

When the mobs and mobsters roamed the towns in Cumilla and Chowmuhani, Noakhali for several hours, the police were squarely blamed for the slow response.

Scores of survivors, Durga Puja committee members, and priests of temples claimed to have called the civil administration, police stations, 999 emergency police helpline, and even ruling Awami League leaders, but unfortunately, nobody responded.

Members of the Human Rights Alliance Bangladesh, Research and Empowerment Organization (REO), and Nipironer Birudhey Shahbag, a sister organization of Gonojagaron Mancho, visited the place and met Achintya Das Tito, secretary of the Cumilla Mahanagar (city) Puja Committee. He was an eyewitness to the desecration of the Nanua Dighirpar Puja. He had frantically called the police chief, the police station, civil administration, and Awami League leaders for help to stop the mayhem.

Their conspicuous silence was questioned by the media, civil society, rights groups, and Hindu leaders.

Interestingly, at one end of the large pond, a stone’s throw away was the home of Cumilla City Mayor Monirul Haque Sakku and, on the other corner, lived ruling party MP AQM Bahauddin Bahar. None came forward for decisive action.

“The desired help never came. It came only then when everything was lost to sectarian violence,” he lamented.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 2 November 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

The cries of Hindus of Bangladesh

Racial riot incinerates ISKON temple in Chowmuhani, Noakhali - Photo Collected

Scores of amateur videos recorded on smartphones were uploaded on Facebook, where cries of panic-stricken Hindu women, girls and children were heard

SALEEM SAMAD

Cricket star and former captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza of the Bangladesh team posted a touching reaction on his Facebook account, rueing the mayhem and carnage carried out against the Hindu community in Bangladesh over the last few days.

The ruling Awami League lawmaker Mortaza posted a picture of the burning village in Rangpur, where hooligans torched homes of the Hindu community.

The Facebook post says: “Saw two defeats last night. One was the Bangladesh cricket team’s and that one hurt. The other one was a defeat for the whole of Bangladesh, which tore my heart to pieces.”

Bangladesh has once again plunged into racial riots during the annual Durga Puja festival since 13 October. The hooligans armed with metal bars, bamboo and batons vandalised, ransacked, desecrated temples and makeshift Durga Puja sites. They torched thousands of homes of the Hindu community and looted business establishments in half of the cities and district towns in the country.

“This isn’t the first time that minorities in Bangladesh have come under attack,” Amnesty International’s South Asia campaigner, Saad Hammadi. “Targeting religious sensitivities to stoke communal tension is one of the worst forms of human rights violation.”

Hindus of Bengal had witnessed the infamous 1946 Noakhali Riot and Kolkata Killings as prelude to the bloody partition. In 1964 a sectarian violence erupted in Bangladesh on the alleged theft of hair of Muslim’s most revered prophet Muhammad in Kashmir, India.

Of course, the genocidal campaign in 1971 by Pakistan military forces, the second such genocide after the Second World War after that of the Nazis in Germany, also hadtargeted the Hindus to exterminate them from East Bengal.

Bangladesh Hindu Unity Council @UnityCouncilBD tweeted: “We want the right to practice our religion. We want protection in our temples. We want [the] protection of Hindu women. We want the right to live in peace in our homeland Bangladesh.”

Rana Dasgupta, a lawyer and general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC) said “It is unfortunate that a majority of the grassroots leaders of the ruling Awami League were also seen with the rioters.”

The Unity Council lamented at a press meet in Chattagram port city said they have lost faith in the political leadership for their failure to protect the vandalism and discretion of Hindu temples and makeshift Durga Puja altar.

Well, the rioting occurred when the civil and police administration apparently did not swing into action, Dasgupta lamented. Scores of amateur videos recorded on smartphones were uploaded on Facebook, where cries of panic-stricken Hindu women, girls and children were heard.

Most eyewitnesses in social media claimed that the attire of the hooligans was in shirt and trousers, not wearing caps, sporting beard in kurta and pyjama, traditionally worn by Islamists or Madrassah students.

Months after the brutal birth of Bangladesh, the first Durga Puja festival in 1972 was attacked in capital Dhaka, Chittagong and elsewhere and police pointed fingers towards the defeated henchmen of Pakistan military forces.

Everybody believed the story. When intermittent incidents occurred almost every year, civil society, human rights groups and media paused briefly to review what went wrong with the vision of secularism and pluralism.

An estimated 3 million people were victims of racial cleansing and another 10 million people were forced to become ‘war refugees’ and took shelter in neighbouring states of India.

It was a nightmare for the Delhi government to manage the crisis. Plus hundreds of officers and soldiers revolted and joined the Mukti Bahini along with tens of thousands of barefoot guerrillas were recruited from among the students and farmers to resist the marauding Pakistan military.

The bloody war was fought and won to establish an independent Bangladesh based on secularism, pluralism and democracy.

In the fifth year of independence, the architect of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in a military putsch and thus the nation plunged into perpetual darkness.

Revival of Islamism surfaced and local henchmen indicted for crime against humanity and waging war against Bangladesh were released after the “Collaborators [of Pakistan] Act, 1972” was scraped by a military dictator General Ziaur Rahman, a liberation war hero.

Parties propagating religion was banned in the 1972 constitution. The military junta amended the law and allowed Islamist parties to function. Promptly the Jamaat-e-Islami, an active collaborator of the Pakistan military surfaced after long hibernation with new vigour and resurgence of political Islam.

In 2001 the Islamist party joined the electoral alliance with the rightist party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by Khaleda Zia.

Hours after the result of the unofficial elections were announced, the hooligans unleashed a countrywide reign of terror against Hindus, as well as opposition Awami League supporters. Thousands were maimed and police refused to register cases against the perpetrators.

In 1992, violence was unleashed against the Hindus by Islamists in protest against the demolition of the controversial Babri Masjid. The sectarian violence continued from December 1992 till March 1993. The 12th-century heritage Dhakeshwari temple was attacked during the racial riots.

For 20 years, the persecuted Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and Adivasis did not receive justice, not to speak of compensation.

Also, the Ahmadiyya sect of Muslims were not spared by Islamists. The ruling party remain silent and believes the Islamist version that the Ahmadiyya’s are heretic. On every Friday Jumma prayer, the Islamist march in front of the Ahmadiyya mosque chanting slogan to ban the heretics and shut down their mosque.

Nevertheless, the ripple effect has begun. And protests are being held in all educational campuses, cities major intersections and in front of the press clubs all over the country.

The 1971 liberation war veteran Sachin Karmakar, a retired Mukti Bahini commented that the successive governments in a bid to win the heart of the Islamists on their side have dug canals and invited crocodiles for the protection of their thrones. Now the hungry crocodiles are chasing us as their prey?

First published in the International Affairs Review, 19 October 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist and columnist based in Bangladesh, a media rights defender. Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com;Twitter: @saleemsamad

Majoritarian Muslims failed to protect Hindu minorities

Angry Mother (Maa) Durga

SALEEM SAMAD

Revered Fakir Lalon Shah’s 131 death anniversary was on October 16. His most popular song: “O how long are we to wait/For the birth of a society/Where castes and class and labels/Like Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian/Will be forgotten?/And none will be there to swindle the innocent/Pretending to be their saviour/Nor will there be bigots.”

“More than 80 special shrines set up for the Durga Puja festival were attacked, with about 150 Hindus injured and two killed,” writes the Guardian newspaper.

Many researchers dub this the worst racial riot, desecration of temples, and attacks on homes of Hindus and compare it to the post-poll violence that occurred when Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, in alliance with Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, swept into power on October 1, 2001. 

Thousands of Hindus took refuge in the neighbouring state of West Bengal, India.

If a nation is divided on the basis of religion, faith, and political ideology, it means that the country is following in the footsteps of Pakistan.

It’s a rule of the majority to dominate the society, politics and economy. Here the majority are Muslims and only about 12.73 million of the population are Hindus (8.5%) -- the rest are Buddhists, Christians, and ethnic communities.

The onus of the security and welfare of the minorities obviously rests upon the majority. The majority have a bigger slice of the state and politics. Thus, the state governed by the ruling party will have to shield the minorities and provide protection, security, and safety.

According to writer and researcher Mohiuddin Ahmad, nowhere in the world have racial strifes or sectarian violence occurred without state and politicians’ tacit indulgence, whether it be Bosnia, Gujarat, Arakan , Nasirnagar, or Delhi.

Interestingly, only hours later, the nomination of ruling party leaders allegedly responsible for instigating the strife in November 2016 has been stripped, and they cannot participate in the local government elections in Brahmanbaria.

At the first reaction, why were the two perpetrators given nominations in the first place? 

Shouldn’t those leaders responsible for selecting nominees for the local government elections seek a public apology? They must also admit their follies in compromising politics and crime.

In the last 20 years, the state has failed to bring the perpetrators and hooligans to face justice. They have enjoyed impunity, and this has caused a ripple of insecurity among the Hindus and other minorities.

Today, the civil society and citizens’ group misses the journalist and secularist Syed Abul Moksud, who was vocal on the issue of secularism, pluralism, tolerance, and hate crime. Moksud died last February, and his footprints will be found in almost all the cities, districts, towns, and villages, wherever there was strife. 

He urged the authorities to identify the criminals and prepare a list of people involved in hate crime, especially those who preached hate speech against Hindus and other minorities.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 19 October 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad