'Vulnerable' Bangladeshdeshi Hindus want Modi intervention for safety

Kolkata, Jun 12: In the wake of a series of attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, the minority community there wants Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian government to take up the matter with Dhaka to ensure their safety and security.

"The Hindu community, which is the biggest minority community in Bangladesh, is vulnerable in Bangladesh.

Fundamentalist and Jamat forces are trying to wipe out Hindus from Bangladesh. "We feel that India being a Hindu majority country, should do something. We have high hopes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He should act and take up the matter with Bangladeshi government and ensure the safety and security of Hindus," Rana Dasgupta, general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council and noted Human Rights activist, told PTI.

A 60-year-old Hindu ashram worker, Nityaranjan Pandey, was hacked to death on June 10 by suspected Islamists, becoming the fourth person from the minority community to be killed in a series of brutal attacks on secular activists in the Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

"The religious majority and the fundamentalist groups want to eliminate the Hindu community. Since last two years, this religious cleansing has gained further pace. Stability in the Indian subcontinent region can never be achieved with Bangladesh turning into a fundamental state.

So if India wants stability in the region it should act to stop the annihilation of minorities in our country," Dasgupta, who is also Prosecutor of International Crimes Tribunal, claimed. Pandey's murder comes within a week of killings of a Hindu priest, a Christian grocer and wife of an anti-terror police officer.

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In February, militants stabbed to death a Hindu priest at a temple and shot and wounded a devotee who went to his aid. In April, a liberal professor was brutally hacked to death in Rajshahi city.

In the same month, a Hindu tailor was hacked to death in his shop and Bangladesh's first gay magazine editor was brutally murdered along with a friend in his flat in Dhaka by Islamist forces. Bangladesh has also seen a series of attacks on secular and liberal bloggers in 2015.

PTI