Dhaka, Bangladesh – Krishna Das had by no means imagined that his peaceable life in Sunamganj, a northeastern district of Bangladesh, would come crashing down on a seemingly odd Tuesday night final week.
The set off was an allegation of blasphemy. A younger Hindu man, Akash Das, had allegedly posted an insulting remark in regards to the Quran on Fb. The remark shortly unfold throughout social media, igniting protests and escalating tensions, notably within the predominantly Muslim neighborhood of Dowarabazar, about 270km (168 miles) from the nationwide capital Dhaka.
Krishna was at house when the primary indicators of chaos reached his doorstep in Monglargaon village about 8pm. “I heard shouting coming from the market,” Krishna recalled. “I couldn’t perceive what was taking place, however I may really feel one thing was incorrect.”
Stepping exterior, he noticed individuals gathering within the streets, chanting slogans. Quickly, the group grew right into a mob, waving sticks and batons. “I rushed inside, locked the doorways, and tried to cover,” he stated. “However they broke in anyway.”
The violence unfold shortly, though Akash Das, the 17-year-old Hindu man from his neighbourhood, had already been arrested by the police beneath the “cyber safety act” earlier than the mob descended on Monglargaon.
“They destroyed every part – every part I had labored for. It was as if we had been nothing – our lives didn’t matter,” Krishna, a small-scale farmer, advised Al Jazeera. “They smashed our home windows, destroyed our furnishings, and commenced looting every part of worth. They took cash, little jewelry and something they might discover. Even the kitchen utensils.”
The attackers even set fireplace to a part of his home. Although Krishna was capable of extinguish the flames, the household’s tin-roofed and walled house was destroyed, their possessions gone – and their sense of safety shattered. When Al Jazeera met Krishna 4 days after the incident, his household – a spouse and two teenage sons – was not at house.
“I despatched my spouse and sons away to stick with family within the metropolis,” Krishna advised us in an exhausted voice. “They had been terrified.”
Not less than 20 different Hindu houses in Monglargaon had been additionally attacked.
“After they attacked my house, my two daughters and spouse fled by the backdoor into the jungle,” stated Bijon Das, referring to a dense patch of timber behind his home.
“I’ve despatched my daughters and spouse to my relative’s home within the metropolis [Sylhet, the nearest big city],” he added, saying that a number of Hindu males had been staying again solely to protect their houses.
The mob violence lasted for about three to 4 hours earlier than safety forces intervened.
“I noticed that many of the harm was to tin-roofed homes and tin-shuttered outlets,” stated native journalist AR Jewel, who was on the scene when the assault occurred, estimating about 20 properties had been affected.
Nevertheless, Meher Nigar Tanu, the highest bureaucrat for the subdistrict wherein Monglargaon falls, downplayed the dimensions of the violence, arguing that “just a few houses and outlets had been barely broken”.
She insisted that some social media experiences had “exaggerated” the violence, and advised Al Jazeera that legislation enforcement officers had managed to cease a mob from getting into a temple belonging to the Worldwide Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a Hindu spiritual motion.
Native authorities, together with the military and police, are working to revive a “sense of safety” for the area’s Hindus, Tanu stated.
Nonetheless, concern lingers. In Monglargaon, the village on the coronary heart of the violence, many homes had been seen locked final week on Friday morning, and the streets had been eerily quiet – with safety forces stationed at avenue intersections.
For a lot of Hindus throughout Bangladesh, Monglargaon is a microcosm of the community’s deep insecurities nowadays.
‘A twofold downside’
On August 5, then Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled unexpectedly from Dhaka for India on a army plane after 15 years in energy, following a preferred rebellion in opposition to her more and more authoritarian rule. Greater than 1,000 persons are estimated to have been killed within the crackdown by her safety forces earlier than she resigned.
India is broadly perceived in Bangladesh as having propped up Hasina’s rule. Hasina and her secular Awami League celebration, in flip, are seen as having been extra sympathetic to the nation’s Hindu minority – which makes up 10 % of the inhabitants – than the nation’s different main political forces, such because the Bangladesh Nationalist Celebration (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami. Activists from the BNP and Jamaat – which each confronted extreme curbs beneath Hasina’s rule – now not face these restrictions.
Reviews from the aftermath of the Hasina regime’s collapse counsel large-scale looting and the ransacking of nationwide monuments and authorities buildings. Greater than 200 individuals had been killed, throughout religions, largely Awami League activists and police officers, as Hasina’s fall precipitated a thirst for retribution and revenge.
In line with the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC), a minority rights group, there have been 2,000 incidents of “communal violence”, together with 9 Hindu deaths and 69 assaults on locations of worship, between August 4 and August 20.
Nevertheless, investigations by Netra Information, an impartial investigative outlet, which scrutinised essentially the most extreme claims, the deaths of the 9 Hindu males, discovered that the killings had been “politically and personally motivated, not religiously pushed”.
In the meantime, as relations between India and Bangladesh plummeted, some media experiences in India exaggerated the scale of violence in opposition to Hindus. “Assaults concentrating on minority teams are usually not unusual in Bangladesh, particularly when the federal government adjustments arms,” stated 42-year-old Deboraj Bhattacharjee, a Hindu banker in Dhaka. “However the way in which some specific Indian media, aligned with BJP, are twisting the bottom actuality and spreading a local weather of concern doesn’t assist us right here.”
He was referring to India’s ruling Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
As many as 49 Indian media retailers disseminated at the least 13 false experiences about Bangladesh between August 12 and December 5, 2024, based on an investigation by Rumor Scanner, an impartial Bangladeshi fact-checking organisation.
Nonetheless, “for the reason that fall of Hasina, there is no such thing as a solution to deny the concern and insecurity that’s gripping the Hindu communities … largely in rural areas,” stated Bhattacharjee. Anti-Hindu spiritual activists, “who couldn’t dominate a lot in the course of the Hasina rule, now are in energy”, he added.
Abhro Shome Pias, a 27-year-old Hindu pupil who research at Bangladesh College of Engineering and Know-how (BUET), Dhaka’s premier engineering faculty, stated there had been “numerous incidents of violence and persecution of Hindus”.
“Many Hindus have been displaced, and their lands had been grabbed forcibly, and it’s unclear whether or not they’ve acquired justice or compensation,” stated Pias.
The assaults additionally shine a lightweight on a painful fact for a lot of Bangladeshi Hindus: They are saying they should consistently show their loyalty to their nation over India.
“India is house to 90 % of our spiritual websites, and that’s the place our connection lies,” Pias defined. “Nevertheless, nearly all of Bangladeshi Hindus don’t help the present Indian authorities or its ‘Hindutva’ extremism,” he stated, referring to the Hindu majoritarian ideology of the BJP.
That stress to dissociate from India will get difficult when the large neighbour is seen as peddling amplified accounts of Hindu atrocities in Bangladesh, say neighborhood members.
“Hindus in Bangladesh are going through a twofold downside,” stated Chakravarty, a 29-year-old pharmacy proprietor at Dowarabazar market, who spoke provided that his full identify not be revealed. “On one hand, Indian media spreads disinformation and exaggerates incidents, a few of which by no means even occurred. This fuels anti-India sentiment, which, in flip, contributes to a sense of insecurity amongst us, the Hindus.”
It’s an insecurity Chakravarty lived by – and barely survived – final week.
‘Trapped inside for two.5 hours’
Because the mob rampaged by Dowarabazar market final week, Chakravarty discovered himself trapped inside his store, pondering solely of his three-year-old daughter. His spouse had handed away in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and his daughter’s security was his sole concern.
“I used to be inside once I heard them chanting slogans. As they attacked, I shortly put the shutter down,” Chakravarty advised Al Jazeera. “I used to be trapped inside for about two and a half hours whereas they attacked my store and others close by.”
The attackers used machetes, threw bricks, and wreaked havoc on close by companies. “They couldn’t enter my pharmacy, however broken my gates,” he stated, including that his uncle’s pharmacy in the identical market was utterly ransacked. “There wasn’t even a paracetamol left.”
From inside his pharmacy, Chakravarty’s thoughts raced again house. “I stored calling my household, questioning if our home was attacked,” he stated. His aged mom, father and sister-in-law are actually staying together with his brother in Sylhet metropolis, and his daughter is with them.
“If it weren’t for my motherless daughter, I don’t know if I might have survived. I might have had a cardiac arrest,” he stated, his voice cracking with emotion. “If that they had gotten inside, they may have overwhelmed me to dying.” Nevertheless, there have been no reported accidents or casualties within the assault available on the market that day.
“Later that evening, I got here house and located the door damaged, and every part – furnishings, garments – was destroyed. They even ransacked our drawers. Within the morning, there was nothing left in the home to make use of,” he stated. Another households whose houses had been attacked had been left with out even “utensils to cook dinner their meal the subsequent morning”, he stated.
Chakravarty, who additionally offers primary medical therapy door-to-door in close by villages, stated when he visited sufferers, he “noticed disbelief of their eyes”.
“The particles, the damaged bits of furnishings, bricks, and damaged glasses throughout the premises,” he recounted.
But, Chakravarty emphasised that such violence was unprecedented within the area. “Individuals right here work collectively – even rejoice collectively in spiritual festivals and gatherings. This has by no means occurred earlier than,” he famous.
“It will depart a scar for a very long time.”
Who’s accountable?
The interim management in Bangladesh, led by 84-year-old Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, has accused the Indian media of exaggerating assaults on Hindus in Bangladesh.
Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to Yunus, acknowledged to Al Jazeera that there had been some assaults on spiritual minorities following the ousting of Hasina. However, he added, “most of the occasions reported within the Indian media have been exaggerated and a part of an industrial degree dissemination of deliberate disinformation”.
The interim authorities is dedicated to upholding “freedom of faith, freedom of affiliation, and freedom of meeting for all spiritual establishments”, he stated.
Calling on the spiritual leaders from all faiths for a “nationwide unity” on Thursday final week, Yunus stated there was a “discrepancy between the fact and the information revealed by international media”, about assaults on spiritual minorities.
In the meantime, Hindu activists have staged a number of large-scale protest rallies within the capital, Dhaka, and elsewhere since August to demand, amongst different issues, legal guidelines to guard minorities, the institution of a minority ministry, and a tribunal to prosecute acts of oppression in opposition to them. Additionally they known as for a five-day vacation for the most important competition for Hindu Bengalis, Durga Puja.
However tensions escalated additional after the arrest of Chinmoy Krishna Das, a Hindu monk previously related to ISKCON, in November. Das had been rallying protests after Hasina’s elimination. He was detained beneath a colonial-era sedition legislation after a neighborhood politician accused him of insulting the Bangladeshi flag by elevating a saffron flag (generally related to Hinduism) on high of it at a rally calling for an finish to the violence in opposition to Hindus.
His arrest and subsequent bail denial triggered a wave of protests, culminating in a lethal conflict with police when a Muslim lawyer was hacked to dying exterior a Chattogram courtroom, allegedly by the supporters of ISKCON.
Police arrested greater than 20 people in reference to the homicide, amid protests by legal professionals and college students who known as for a ban on ISKCON in Bangladesh. The Supreme Courtroom has to this point rejected authorized petitions in search of to ban ISKCON.
In the meantime, Hasina issued a press release from exile in India final week, accusing Yunus of failing to guard Hindus and different minorities. “Hindus, Buddhists, Christians – nobody has been spared. Eleven church buildings have been destroyed. Temples and Buddhist shrines have been damaged. When the Hindus protested, the ISKCON chief was arrested,” Hasina stated.
Had been Hindus safer throughout Hasina’s regime?
But, some Hindus argue that the notion that the neighborhood was safer in Bangladesh beneath Hasina is misplaced.
Bhattacharjee remembers shedding two acres (about 0.8 hectares) of household land by the hands of activists of a former Awami League MP, who was arrested final September on expenses of “extortion and dying threats”.
“Hindus weren’t protected beneath Hasina both,” he stated. “We had been used as political pawns. The sense of safety many Hindus felt in the course of the Awami League regime was extra psychological than actual.”
Nevertheless, Sreeradha Datta, a professor and Bangladesh professional at Jindal College of Worldwide Affairs on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, defined to Al Jazeera that the notion of Hindu security beneath a Hasina administration is rooted in historic context.
“Whereas violence in opposition to Hindus did happen in the course of the Awami League’s 15-year rule, the celebration’s secular stance usually gave minority teams a way of safety and security,” Datta stated. “In distinction, throughout earlier non-Awami League governments, just like the BNP-Jamaat alliance, assaults on minorities notably elevated. This continues to affect the present perceptions.”
The minority rights group, BHBCUC, had earlier reported 45 murders, largely of Hindus, between June 2023 and July 2024 in the course of the Hasina administration.
A outstanding human rights group, Ain o Salish Kendra, reported at the least 3,679 assaults on the Hindu neighborhood between January 2013 and September 2021, together with vandalism, arson, and focused violence, with Awami League leaders allegedly complicit in a number of circumstances.
In 2021, following mob assaults on Hindu minority households and temples in Bangladesh throughout and after Durga Puja, rights group Amnesty Worldwide stated, “Such repeated assaults in opposition to people, communal violence and destruction of the houses and locations of worship of minorities in Bangladesh over time present that the state has failed in its obligation to guard minorities.”
Manindra Kumar Nath, president of the BHBCUC, harassed that the minority motion in Bangladesh is distinct and impartial from each India and Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League.
“It’s not a brand new phenomenon. The demand for a minority safety legislation and the institution of a minority fee has been longstanding,” he advised Al Jazeera.
Nath additionally famous that Hindu college students had been actively concerned within the protest motion that led to the elimination of Hasina’s authorities. “They united to protest the unfulfilled guarantees and calls for that Hasina has ignored for a lot too lengthy,” he defined.
Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury, a former minister in Hasina’s cupboard now in exile in India, nonetheless, defended his celebration’s monitor document.
“If you happen to evaluate the violence in opposition to Hindus throughout non-[Awami League] regimes with what occurred beneath ours, the distinction is obvious,” he advised Al Jazeera.
“Some assaults did occur throughout our rule, we can’t deny that. Nevertheless, what’s taking place after August 5 is sheer brutality and a violation of human rights,” he added. “They [the interim government] try to take away secularism from the structure.”
The nation’s structure designates Islam because the state faith whereas additionally recognising “secularism” as one of many guiding ideas. Nevertheless, this may occasionally now be liable to change.
Bangladesh’s legal professional common, Md Asaduzzaman, instructed throughout an October excessive courtroom listening to that he would help the elimination of secularism from the structure. “Socialism and secularism don’t replicate the realities of a nation the place 90 % of the inhabitants are Muslim,” he stated.
Nath warned that eradicating secularism from the structure would considerably threaten the rights of spiritual minorities. “Prior to now, governments have promised us protections and rights of their election manifestos, however as soon as in energy, they didn’t implement them,” he stated.
Bhattacharjee echoed these considerations.
“If secularism is taken out of the structure, it’ll ship a transparent message that spiritual minorities now not matter to the state.”
Already, he stated, the federal government was downplaying assaults on Hindus, by suggesting that solely these affiliated with the Awami League had been focused and that the attackers had been “miscreants” somewhat than mobs pushed by sentiments in opposition to the neighborhood.
“The actual problem for this interim authorities isn’t about combating disinformation from another nation,” he stated. “It’s how they deal with the rising violence at house, particularly with fundamentalist teams now emboldened. The main target must be on making certain Hindu minorities really feel protected once more.”
“Phrases aren’t sufficient any extra.”
