Ethnic Cleansing in Bangladesh-Why #CAB is important for minorities in Bangladesh

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By Anonymous
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On February 28, 2013, the international

crimes tribunal sentenced Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, Vice President of Jamaat-e-Islami to death for war crimes committed during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation war this led to large-scale and nationwide violence against Hindus led by activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir in which hundreds of Hindus were killed more than 50 temples demolished and 1,500 Hindu homes destroyed.

Pakistan's 1951 census the first taken after the large population transfers that accompanied partition found Hindus to be about a third of the East Pakistani population. When Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971 they were just under a fifth. 30 years later less than 1/10 and today an estimated 1 in 15, all of this despite increasing movement of Bangladeshi Muslims into West Bengal,

India. Apologists for the Bangladeshi establishment often say that "Oh! Hindus

leave Bangladesh for India so they can find better matches for their children."

The disappearance of Bangladesh's Hindus

has come about through continuous human rights atrocities that regularly include murder, rape (including gang rape), child abduction, force conversion, religious desecration and more. At the time of Bangladesh's liberation from Pakistan Hindus bore the brunt of one of the largest genocide of the 20th century. 2.4 million Hindus were brutally killed and most of Hindu home businesses were

destroyed.

Since then, the remaining Hindus of Bangladesh have been at the receiving end of incessant and horrific violence at the hands of the Islamists, a constituency that's gained a lot of power in the country. Every year since then different parts of Bangladesh have witnessed organized violence against the Hindus.

According to BJ HM an alliance of Hindu organizations in Bangladesh: In 2017 alone,

107 Hindus were killed 31 abducted, 23 underwent forced conversion, 25 Hindu

women were raped and 235 temples were vandalized. What's important to know from

a tactical perspective is that the Bangladeshi government did not do these

things and that's one of the things that makes this so hard to get across to

people. There are no concentration campsin Bangladesh... no gulags, no killing

fields, no Hitler or Stalin. But do you think that matters to the millions of

victims? Of course not. The Bangladeshis are guilty because government after

government has created a culture of impunity that allows crimes against Hindus to go unpunished.

A country where you are likely to be killed if

you voluntarily change your religion from Islam to something else and your killer

will not be punished for it but also a country where forced conversion to Islam

is applauded.

A country whose police and lawmakers act in accordance with that. In

other words, killing the person who left Islam and abducting and forcibly

converting a Hindu child to Islam both will win you praise.

This human rights atrocity is a quiet case of ethnic cleansing because even though it has been proceeding for decades and victims number in the millions, very

little have been said or done about it.

Governments on every continent have been silent, so have their intelligence agencies.

What is most puzzling is the silence of the next-door Hindu majority neighbor India. Why Indians don't care is deeply unsettling.

Equally bewildering is the silence of the global media.

Nowhere. Why are they not leading

the charge to expose these crimes against Hindus? It surely is a quiet case of ethnic cleansing. But it need not have been quiet, if only Hindus of neighbouring India were more empathetic with their

co-religionists across the border. Now, I say Hindus and not Indians deliberately

because Muslims of India have always stood in solidarity with Muslims from

other parts of the world like "Palestine" or Myanmar. For example, in 2012 a protest

march called by Muslims of Mumbai against the treatment of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar

led to the Azam Maidan riots, resulting in two deaths and injuries to

45 policemen.