Bangladesh accuses India of ‘double standards’ on protection of minorities

PTI, Nov 30, 2024, 7:59 AM IST

Dhaka: Bangladesh on Friday claimed India followed “double standards” on protection of minority communities and accused the neighbouring country’s media of conducting an “industrial scale misinformation campaign” against Dhaka.

Amid a row over the arrest of Hindu leader Chinmoy Krishna Das on sedition charges, Bangladesh interim government’s Law Affairs Adviser Asif Nazrul in a Facebook post said India’s unwarranted concern for Bangladesh continues.

“In India, numerous incidents of brutality on minority Muslim community is going on. But they don’t have any remorse or embarrassment (over those incidents). This double standard of India is condemnable and objectionable,” Nazrul wrote.

Citing a survey by Voice of America Bangla, Nazrul wrote: “The majority of Bangladeshis (64.1%) believe that the interim government has been able to provide better security to the country’s minority communities compared to the previous Awami League government.”

Meanwhile, Bangladesh interim government of Muhammad Yunus urged the country’s journalists to counter “misinformation” in Indian media with “truth”. Chief Adviser Yunus’s Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam said, “We must tell our stories our way else they (Indian media) will set our narrative according to their liking.”

Alam, a former journalist, said in a Facebook post that several Bangladeshi journalists now realised it was time to confront an “industrial scale misinformation campaign” coming from some Indian media outlets and their social media platforms.

He said Indians should know that smart people also live on its eastern border and a few months back these people ousted a “brutal dictatorship” in one of the “finest revolutions” in human history.

Alam said some may think Indians are smarter people. “But believe me if you are empowered by truth, no misinformation campaign can stop you”.

His comments came as a group of students staged a demonstration at the Dhaka University campus calling for resisting India’s alleged interference in Bangladesh’s internal affairs.

They also demanded the extradition of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who had fled to India in August amid massive student-led protests, and a ban on International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in Bangladesh.

The students accused India of “border killings”, religious persecution and attempts to instigate communal strife in Bangladesh.

They also accused the Indian government of inciting communal tensions in Bangladesh and exploiting religious differences to destabilise the country.

“India is killing people on our border every week. Minorities in their own country are being persecuted daily. Recently, several Muslims were killed in an incident centred around a mosque,” president of the Student Rights Council, Bin Yamin Molla, alleged.

Molla said that Bangladesh cannot consider India a friendly nation.

The protesters also demanded a review of agreements signed with India in the last 16 years and assurance of fair water-sharing from common rivers.

India on Friday said the interim government in Bangladesh must live up to its responsibility of protecting all minorities as it expressed serious concern over the “surge” of extremist rhetoric and increasing incidents of violence in the neighbouring country.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India has consistently and strongly raised with the Bangladeshi government the threats and “targeted attacks” on Hindus and other minorities.

On October 30, a sedition case was filed against 19 people, including Das, at Chattogram’s Kotwali Police Station, accusing them of disrespecting Bangladesh’s national flag in Chattogram’s New Market area during a rally of the Hindu community.

Das, a spokesperson for the Bangladesh Sammilita Sanatani Jagran Jote, was arrested from Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Monday for alleged sedition. He was denied bail and sent to jail by a Chattogram court on Tuesday, triggering protests by his supporters.