Will return with 5 lakh monks if attacks on Hindus don't cease: Suvendu to B'desh mission officials

Kolkata, Dec 26 (PTI) Protests against attacks on minority Hindus in Bangladesh continued before the country's Deputy High Commission here on Friday, with BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari threatening to return to the premises with "five lakh Gangsagar pilgrims" if the assaults were not brought to an immediate halt.

Adhikari, the leader of the opposition in West Bengal Assembly, met senior officials of the Deputy High Commission as part of a five-member delegation, and claimed that the diplomats had "no answer to most of his questions".

"I asked them that if the former Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina granted asylum to Myanmar Rohingyas in Cox' Bazar because they were Muslims, why are the Hindus being indiscriminately targeted? If they think two crore Hindus in that country will get constantly targeted and 100 crore Hindus on this side of the border will sit and watch silently, then they are grossly mistaken," he said.

The BJP leader also launched a sharp attack on the Mamata Banerjee government over police action on protesters who demonstrated before the deputy high commission earlier this week.

"There is no difference between the police of Mumammad Yunus on that side of the border and those of Mamata Banerjee here. Both serve their masters blindly," Adhikari said, referring to the baton-charge and arrests of 19 supporters of a Hindu organisation which had breached barricades and clashed with the police in their attempt to raid the mission premises on December 23.

Police were deployed in large numbers before the Deputy High Commission office on Friday. Metal barricades bolted to the ground were set up which cordoned off the zone and turned it into a virtual fortress to stop protesters from reaching the premises, a sovereign Bangladeshi territory on Indian soil.

Adhikari, accompanied by a few hundred Hindu monks, threatened to return with a much larger force and storm the mission office if the attacks continued unabated.

"Monks will set up camps at Babughat on their way to the Gangasagar mela. I will return with five lakh Hindu pilgrims of Gangasagar at the beginning of next year and uproot these barricades on our march to the high commission office," he said.

Earlier in the day, activists of Hindu Sanhati, a fringe outfit, took out a rally to the mission office and submitted a six-point charter of demand to the officials.

The memorandum included demands for exemplary punishment of those involved in the lynching of Dipu Chandra Das in Meymenshingh on December 18 and security of minorities in Bangladesh and their religious institutions.

"We have also sought exemplary punishment for the police officials who handed Dipu Das over to the mob. The Bangladesh government should crack down on those spreading rumors against the minorities that are triggering such attacks," said Rajat Roy, an advisory committee member of Hindu Sanhati.

Meanwhile, a Kolkata court granted interim bail to 12 members of the Bangiyo Hindu Jagaran Mancha, arrested for allegedly staging a violent demonstration outside the Bangladesh mission on Tuesday, following completion of their 48-hour police remand.

The arrested agitators, including seven women, were booked under charges of attempt to murder, rioting, unlawful assembly, causing danger and obstruction in public ways, voluntarily causing hurt to a public servant alongside assaulting or using force against a public servant.

While the women were granted bail by the court on Wednesday, the men were sent to police custody for two days.

Large scale violence erupted across the neigbouring nation since December 18 -- including riots, arson, and attacks on minority Hindus, vandalism at cultural sites and targeting of a section of the media -- after news spread of the killing of Osman Hadi, a leader of the July 2024 uprising against Sheikh Hasina and a prospective candidate for the upcoming parliamentary elections.

At least two Hindu youths were lynched and houses of minorities in Bangladesh being ransacked and torched in the wake of the violence.

Dipu Chandra Das, a 27-year-old garment factory worker, was lynched after allegations of blasphemy. His body was hung from a tree and burned in full public view on December 18 in Meymensingh district.

Six days later, on Christmas eve, 29-year-old Amrit Mondal was beaten to death by locals in Rajbari district. Bangladeshi authorities, while condemning the incident, said Mondal was a listed criminal who had entered the area to collect extortion money and clashed with residents.

In the aftermath of the July 2024 uprising, multiple reports of attacks on Hindus surfaced from across Bangladesh. These instances of violence were preceded by reports of targeting of Durga Puja pandals and desecration of temples.

In November 2024, Chinmoy Krishna Das, a spokesperson for the Bangladesh Sanatan Jagaran Mancha and a former ISKCON monk, was arrested on charges of sedition and continues to remain imprisoned.

On Monday, the Indian government stated that over 2,900 incidents of violence against minorities have been documented in Bangladesh by independent sources during the tenure of the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government.

Condemning the murder of Das, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, "The unremitting hostilities against the minorities in Bangladesh including Hindus, Christians and Buddhists are a matter of grave concern. We condemn the recent killing of a Hindu youth in Bangladesh and expect that the perpetrators of the crime will be brought to justice." PTI BSM SMY SCH MPB BDC NN MNB ZMN SMY NN