Angry Muslim mobs attacked Hindu and Christian minorities across Bangladesh days after anti-government protests forced the country’s prime minister out of office.
“The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council said that 45 out of 64 districts in the country had seen the targeting of mostly Hindu homes, businesses or temples this week. A school teacher had been killed and 45 other people hurt, it said,” Reuters reported Thursday.
Persecuted Hindus were trying to flee to neighbouring India. “Early on Thursday, about 300 Bangladeshis had assembled at a border point near India’s Jalpaiguri district but dispersed later. Indian media showed Indian border troops around a group of people there,” the news agency noted.
The anti-Hindu rioting started after countries Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government was brought down by nationwide protests organized by Pakistan-linked Jama’at-i Islami and allied parties.
Hindus comprise around 8 percent of Bangladesh’s 170 million mostly Muslim population. The country is also home to a tiny Christian and Buddhist population.
“Hundreds of Hindu houses, businesses, and temples have been vandalized following the ouster” of the country’s elected government earlier this week, India’s state-run Doordarshan TV reported Thursday.
There is also a social media report of a Muslim mob desecrating a church.
Christians, who make up less than one percent of the population, are repeatedly singled out for attack, Fox News noted Wednesday:
The organization Open Doors, which tracks discrimination of Christians worldwide, ranked Bangladesh as having “very high” persecution levels, claiming that “converts to Christianity face the most severe restrictions, discrimination and attacks.””Religious beliefs are tied to the identity of the community, so turning from the locally dominant faith to following Jesus can result in accusations of betrayal,” the group wrote on its website. “Bangladeshi converts often gather in small house churches due to the risk of attack.”
Muslim gangs reportedly attacked and raped Hindu women, Indian media coverage suggests. The New Delhi-based news website OpIndia reported that “several Hindu women in Bangladesh have come forward to share their tales of horror at the hands of the rampaging Islamist mob.”
“In a video shared by Hindu Voice on August 8, several Hindu women living in different areas of the Pirojpur district in Bangladesh can be heard narrating their plight,” the news outlet added, sharing a Twitter clip with testimonies in the local language.
The unfolding Islamist pogrom is forcing Hindus to flee the Muslim-majority country. “In Bangladesh, a significant number of Hindus have attempted to flee to India this week amid a wave of violence targeting their communities,” the Indian Express newspaper reported Thursday.
In 2019, India amended its citizenship law aimed at easing the path to naturalization for Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians fleeing Muslim persecution in neighbouring Islamic countries. The law excluded Muslim migrants, a move that triggered violent Islamic protests across India.
The re-emergence of Jama’at-i Islami in Bangladesh poses a serious threat to the West, which has imported millions of migrants in recent years from Muslim countries. Jama’at-i Islami, which originated in Pakistan and India, has allied itself with Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups in the U.S. and Europe.
“European organizations with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jama’at-i Islami have begun working more closely with European governments,” Pew noted in a 2010 report. “This has been particularly true since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., as European officials have sought to reach out to their Muslim communities.”
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