Unleashing violence against religious minorities raising allegations of hurting the religious sentiments of majority is not unusual in this country. In these cases, the vested quarters use the social media or resort to other tactics sometimes. However, the main objective is to grab the lands and houses of the minority community.
Research organisations Centre for Alternatives (CA) and Bangladesh Peace Observatory (BPO) in a report published on last Wednesday stated that as much as 70 per cent of the violence against religious minorities in the country is indeed about lands.
And this violence is carried out through destructive actions on the minority’s properties or on their places of worship. The two organisations have come up with this data after analysing the form of different violence against minorities from 2013 to 2022.
In 2016, there was an incident of attack on the houses and temples of the Hindu community in Nasirnagar area of Brahmanbaria centering a Facebook post from a young man named Rasraj Das. However, the forensic department of PBI and CID didn’t find the existence of any such image.
As much as 59 per cent of the incidents of violence mentioned in the report were committed through destruction of properties owned by the minorities and their places of worship after all.
Meanwhile, 11 per cent of them were centred on direct dispute over lands. In about 27 per cent of the cases, there are incidents of physical assault or murder from violence. Plus, there are total two per cent of gender-based violence while another one per cent is election-centric.
The report states that disinformation spread through the social media (basically Facebook) is now playing a major role in catalysing this violence. And the women are being victimised in higher rates.
During the BNP regime, election-centric violence against the minorities had been the main concern. Although it diminished during the Awami League rule, other forms of violence against the minorities are on the rise.
In 2016, there was an incident of attack on the houses and temples of the Hindu community in Nasirnagar area of Brahmanbaria centering a Facebook post from a young man named Rasraj Das.
However, the forensic department of the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) didn’t even find the existence of any such image examining the cellphone and the memory card.
That means, a false campaign was run and it was completely intentional. Also the same disinformation was spread before setting the Buddhist temple in Ramu on fire. At the time of the violence in Cumilla during the Durga Puja celebration in 2022, there were attacks induced by the spread of disinformation in several other districts of the country as well.
In most cases, these incidents of violence go unpunished and no witnesses are found. Year after year goes by yet the investigation doesn’t come to an end. So overall, there arises a fear and insecurity among the minorities.
The accounts of illegal wealth amassed by former police chief Benazir Ahmed has been revealed recently. And, a significant portion of that is actually the ancestral land of minorities in Gopalganj and Madaripur, which he bought by threatening them. In fact, the duplex house of his in Narayanganj is also built on minority’s land.
During the BNP regime, the party’s communal attitude would be blamed for the violence against minorities. But who will they hold responsible now when the lands and properties of the minorities are being occupied under the rule of Awami League, the party that claims to be secular?
Executive director of the Centre for Alternatives and former professor at the international relations department of Dhaka University Imtiaz Ahmed told Prothom Alo that the disinformation spread on the social media is now turning into the source of violence.
And the local vested quarters are capitalising on them. General secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Oikya Parishad Rana Dasgupta believes that the politically influential groups fuel the violence against minorities.
In the past, even the civil society would come forward in these cases alongside the state. But, now there’s a sort of inaction working in them. During the BNP regime, the party’s communal attitude would be blamed for the violence against minorities.
But who will they hold responsible now when the lands and properties of the minorities are being occupied under the rule of Awami League, the party that claims to be secular? And what answer does the government have to this question?
We demand a fair investigation into every incident of violence against minorities and punishment of those responsible. After all it is the government that has to come forward to recover the grabbed lands of the minorities.