As a Hindu, especially as a Hindu woman, I harbour no illusions about the rights that I would have in an Islamic nation – nay – even in a small locality where Muslims dominate.
I am deeply aware that a Hindu is but an object of humiliation in the land of Islam. I am deeply aware that a Hindu’s options are either to perish or convert. I am also deeply aware that a Hindu woman’s fate in the land of Islam is far more ghastly – I come from a land where warrior queens burnt themselves to death so their dead bodies would not defiled by Islamic invaders. I know. Yet, the unbridled violence in Bangladesh and the subsequent whitewashing of it after the fall of Sheikh Hasina took me by surprise.
The bane of the civilised is that barbarity always comes as a surprise, even though barbarity is fully expected. I truly believe that the reason why the civilised world clutches onto straws in the hopes that Islam will eventually reveal its peaceful face and that the barbarians only represent a small fraction of the larger Muslim community is that through the lense of morality, such unthinkable barbarism seems like an outlier. “All religions teach peace, it is its adherents who twist it”, the civilised say. They say this because their own faith and the morality that comes with it make it almost impossible for them to accept reality. It is beyond the realm of their imagination that such savages can exist – let alone be the norm.
But sometimes, the silent part has to be said out loud. It is never pleasant. But it has to be done. The plight of Hindus in Bangladesh after the fall of Sheikh Hasina is not new. It is not the first time that Hindus have been persecuted. The systematic and institutionalised ethnic cleansing of Hindus was inevitable because no Muslim society will stray from their religious doctrine for too long.
Enough has been written and said about the US’ regime change operation in Bangladesh and how Jamaat-e-Islami engineered the fall of Sheikh Hasina. What has not for the attention it truly deserves is the ensuing ethnic cleansing and targeted attacks against Hindus. On the 5th of August 2024, as the rioters, the US establishment and the media celebrated the fall of Sheikh Hasina, a grim reality started dawning on the Hindus of Bangladesh – they were now at the mercy of Jihadis, roaming the streets, itching to hunt them down.
On the 4th of August, the signs that the violence was morphing into a targeted onslaught against Hindus started surfacing after “protestors” stormed Rayganj Press Club in Sirajganj and brutally attacked a Hindu journalist named Pradip Kimar Bhowmik. He was rushed to the hospital where he was declared dead.
On the same day, Islamists killed a Hindu politician named Haradhan Roy. He was the councillor of Ward 4 in Rangpur city. Roy’s nephew was also lynched by Islamists.
While the indications were evident on the 4th of August, by the 5th, all hell broke lose. Jihadi mobs started burning homes, molesting and raping women, murdering men, looting Hindu owned businesses and specifically destroying Hindu temples. OpIndia
compiled
a list of 54 such instances on the 6th of August. This was only the tip of the iceberg.
As the violence progressed, it became abundantly clear that Hindus were facing an existential threat.
“At night, they came. They vandalised our homes and looted everything. We were hiding. They grabbed my brother-in-law’s wife and took her to another room. They raped her. Later, we recovered her; her face was tied with clothes. They wanted to cut her throat. To save her, we gave them all the gold ornaments”, one Hindu woman said.
“We were sleeping. At night, they came. They were armed. They warned us saying, ‘Fifty of us have surrounded your house, there is no way you can escape.’ They looted everything. They grabbed me and took me to bed. They threatened me with murder. I pleaded with them to either spare me or kill me. They kept threatening me not to cry. They asked me to give away whatever valuables we had. I gave them all my ornaments, so they left me,” said another woman.
Other women wailed about their temples being destroyed. In a video, a Hindu women repeatedly cried out, “They destroyed our temple. they destroyed our temple. why did they destroy our temple”.
when I was reporting from West Bengal and documenting the crimes against Hindus in the aftermath of Mamata Banerjee’s landslide victory in the Assembly Polls, there were several stories of targeted violence, and unimaginable horrors that would go unreported. This happens for several reasons. The collusion of the administration itself which leads to the non-filing of FIRs, the state actively shutting down media houses, journalists, and Hindu groups from reporting the carnage by means of malicious state action, victims refusing the speak up owing to fear of further retribution and women choosing to bear it all because the societal ramifications of speaking up is far too much.
Therefore, to assume that the scale of violence is limited to the stories that have been reported, would be a grave mistake. If three women have come on record to talk about sexual violence against Hindu women, one can assume that the scale is several times more. If there are images of 100 Hindu homes being burnt, one can safely assume that thousands would have been displaced. If one can record 50 Hindus losing their lives, the actual human cost of the violence is far beyond one’s imagination.
But when one speaks to locals and victims of the violence, one can at the very least, understand the nature of the violence being perpetrated.
“They killed one Hindu councillor mercilessly and hung his body upside down in the middle of the road. I don’t think I can express the brutality that was done to him by the Muslim mob. They have killed some Muslim politicians and policemen too, but special kind of torture is being reserved for the Hindus only because they are Hindus”, one local from Bangladesh told me. He was referring to the brutal lynching of Haradhan Roy and his nephew and the lynching of ASI Santosh Saha – Saha was lynched by a mob and then hung upside down in the middle of the road for all to see.
“My neighbour runs a Kirana store (department store). They went to his house and burnt his house. They also burnt his shop and robbed inventory worth lakhs. When he tried to protest, they threatened to kill him and rape his wife. They were repeatedly calling him ‘Kafir’ and telling him that if he has a problem with Jamaat-e-Islami, he should go to India. When threatening the women of his house, they said that the women were ‘ganeemat’ (spoils of war). They forcefully took away at least 6 cows. When they were threatening and looting, they said they would not leave even one Hindu alive. We are scared. Our lives are in danger. We don’t know if we will survive. We don’t know whether we should stay here or run away. Nobody is giving us any help. I am requesting you to help us. Please save us”, he said further. He said that they were also threatened to not talk about their persecution by the mob of 20.
He told us that most Hindus were hiding in their homes or wherever they had fled after the violence. They were not venturing out because they would certainly be attacked after being identified as Hindus.
I asked him about the help, if any, being extended by the local Hindus organisations of the area in which he resides. I was told that the Puja committee heads and other leaders of Hindu organisations also had to flee or remain in hiding because of the targeted violence. I was later told that just as the fall of Sheikh Hasina became apparent, Jamaat-e-Islami started preparing a hitlist of Hindu leaders, organisations, businesses and houses to target.
I then asked why the police were not protecting the Hindus. “All the police officers have abandoned their posts. There are no police officers anywhere in Bangladesh. They were being targeted by Jamaat people and many of them were killed, so they have abandoned their posts. With all the police gone, the mobs are freely targeting Hindus”, he said. He said they could call the Army but the Hindus were scared. First, those living in the outskirts and not in proper cities were too far away for the army to reach on time. Second, a large swath of the army itself is sympathetic to the Jamaat and therefore, nobody was sure if they would help the Hindus or persecute them further.
A local Awami League Hindu politician also said that the Army and the Police were nowhere to be found and they had no protection. His only plea was for India to accept the Bangladeshi Hindus – so those who want to seek refuge are able to do so.
A Hindu Puja committee chairperson said that Hindus in his area were living in terror. “We hardly have food to eat. Who do we go to? Who do we ask for help? There is nobody there for us”, he said. He said a 650-year-old ancient Temple was destroyed by the Jihadi mob – it now lies in ruins. “Every Hindu Sampradaya is now living in terror after these attacks. I am not being able to leave my village. They are attacking Hindu houses in my locality as well”. I asked him for a picture of the temple which lay in ruins – he said that if he left the house he will be lynched. He could send it to me later if he survives the onslaught.
Jihadis harbour special kind of disdain for the cow because Hindus revere the animal as their mother. The targeting of the cow, specifically, has religious undertones which is hard to miss.
“There is no ‘bahini’ to give us any protection. There are a lot of numbers that we have but everyone is scared for their lives. Even if they come, they will take so long that we will be dead by then. My uncle has a medicine shop and his shop has completely been looted and destroyed. All Hindu shops are specifically being targeted. Please stand with us. We want to survive. We want to live. Our request is please save us. Give us refuge. The border security will not let us enter India but please give us refuge. Save the Hindus from Bangladesh”, he said.
He further said if there are any army personnel around while a Hindu is being targeted, they would first outright deny that the Hindu person was being persecuted. They would look at the Hindu and say that they were exaggerating and absolutely nothing as such had happened to them. They would then abuse them using religiously charged slurs as well. “The army would say that nothing has happened to you and you are wasting our time by complaining. They call us Kafirs constantly. They say that our property is their ‘ganeemat’ and that our women are ‘jayaz’”, he said. He further said that many Islamists from the Jamaat and other average Muslims are telling Hindus that they might be saved if they chant, “La Ilaha Illallah Muhammad Rasulullah. We have also been told that if we can’t protect ourselves, we should leave for India”.
‘Hospitals refusing to treat Hindu patients’
According to the local Hindu organisation leader I spoke to, several hospitals in Bangladesh which are refusing to treat Hindu patients after they have been violently and some grievously attacked by Muslim mobs. “These hospitals are refusing treatment to Hindu victims. If you are Hindu, we won’t treat you. They say that it is their right to refuse service to Hindus. There are many who have died because they were attacked grievously and when they reached the hospital, they were not given treatment”, he said.
When the violence had just started, the same local Hindu leader had said that Jamaat-e-Islami men had made hit lists of Hindus, their establishments and organisations. He had also said that Muslim mobs were roaming the streets with weapons to ensure that they could attack any Hindu they see. Hindus were, therefore, trapped in their homes because of the mobs on the streets. “Everyone you have spoken to has suffered loss. Either their homes have been burnt, or they have lost someone they know. This country will finish us. We will not be left. In the next few years, no Hindu will be left in this country after what is happening now”, he said.
“This is our land. We were born here. This is our janmabhoomi. Why would we want to leave? But we are being called Kafirs. They are killing us and hanging us on the streets. Our women are being raped. Our brothers are being attacked. How do we stay here? Doctors are refusing to treat us. Nobody wants to leave, but what do we do? Where do we go?”, he narrates, with a painful concoction of hurt and anger in his voice. He knew personally of Hindus who had been denied treatment in the Sherpur district of Bangladesh. “We are not obligated to treat Hindus, I was told, when I spoke to the hospital in the Sherpur district. I guarantee you, after Mohammad Yunus takes oath, you will soon here that the killings have increased. This will not stop”.
According to local Hindus, at least 30 women have been raped since the violence started. This is an extremely conservative estimate because these are only the cases they have been able to trace. The rapes that they have been able to trace have been from Pirojpur district Rayer Khati region, Brahman Kathi region, Baju Khati region, Comilla District Boroigao, Dinajpur, Jalkhada, Naokhali, Pabna and a few others. The Bangladesh local media has reported that over 232 people have been killed after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina. How many of them are Hindus, is anyone’s guess. This too, is an extremely conservative number according to Hindu locals. As many as 29 Awami League leaders have been murdered after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina. The locals who spoke to me have also said that conservatively, over 50 Hindus have died because they were refused treatment by hospitals owing to their religious identity.
Reported by Bangladesh News reporter.
