SFI takes out protest marches on Presidency, JU campuses against attacks on minorities in Bangladesh

Kolkata, Dec 24 (PTI) CPI(M)'s student wing SFI on Wednesday took out protest marches on Presidency and Jadavpur university campuses to protest attacks on minority Hindus in Bangladesh.

As part of their protest, Students' Federation of India (SFI) members demonstrated at the portico on the Presidency campus on College Street and went around the campus raising slogans against fundamentalism.

"We condemn rise in violence against religious minorities in Bangladesh since the July 2024 uprising. There has been an escalation in such incidents in the neighbouring country in the last one week," SFI Presidency unit leader Bitan Islam said.

"The brutal murder of Dipu Chandra Das, a poor Hindu minority member in Mymensingh on December 18, is a disturbing reminder of the lynching of Afrazul Khan, a migrant worker, by a right-wing Hindu fundamentalist in Rajasthan. The SFI unit of Presidency University unit strongly condemns, what it terms, as fundamentalist, extremist and communal activities in the Indian sub-continent," Islam said.

Attacks on Bangladesh's renowned cultural institutions such as Chhayanaut and Udichi and on major media houses, including 'Prothom Alo' and 'The Daily Star' point out repeated attempts to silence media outlets that refused to align with the narratives of fundamentalists, he said.

SFI's Jadavpur unit, during their on-campus demonstration, protested the attacks on minorities in Bangladesh, attacks on media houses by right-wing Islamist forces and the heinous killings of Dipu in Mymensingh recently and Afrazul in Rajasthan a few years back by Islamist and Hindu fundamentalists, respectively.

"We have to thwart the game-plan of Islamic and Hindu fundamentalism on an equal footing at the same time," SFI state committee member and Presidency alumnus Subhajit Sarkar said.

On December 18, Dipu Chandra Das, a 25-year-old garment factory worker, was lynched by a mob and his body set on fire over alleged blasphemy in Baluka in Bangladesh's Mymensingh.

Since Monday, several protest marches have been taken out by the BJP, CPI(M), Congress, right-wing student outfit ABVP in Kolkata and in several other districts in West Bengal. PTI SUS ACD