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Bangladesh television in its news bulletins had prominently projected the
Durgapooja celebrations in Bangladesh this year. But by and large poojas
were not without the usual quota of attacks throughout Bangladesh. Pooja
pandals were not only attacked demolishing the idols of Goddess Durga but
other deities were also demolished. At a number of places arsoning,
plundering of Hindu houses and homes in the rural and semi-urban areas
were also reported. Cases of outraging the modesty of Hindu women occured
in thousands. Many women were kidnapped during the pooja period. After the
advent of the Awami League in power, Muslim fundamentalists, cutting
across party lines, started inflicting atrocities on Hindus with a greater
zeal. Some Hindus were attributing this new anti-Hindu zeal to the fact
that a few months ago Shaikh Hasina, the present Prime Minister of
Bangladesh, got her daughter married to the grandson of a notorious
Pakistani collaborator of 1971 and leader of an anti-Hindu Rozakars who
took active part in murdering lakhs of Hindus in the the then East
Pakistan. According to one estimate, nearly six hundred pooja pandals were
vandalised this year. Several thousand Hindus have already fled Bangladesh
and have taken shelter in India. But the Calcutta papers, Governments of
India and West Bengal all are maintaining a conspicuous silence on the
developments.
Here are few incidents which occured during the Durgapooja celebrations:
On October 20, 1996, the 'Sarbojanin pooja mandap' of Babupur village
under the Kalia P.S., District Narail in the Greater Jessore Area was
attacked by a Muslim mob led by a local Awami League leader, Eklashuddin
and a local BNP leader, Giasuddin, MLA, with cries of 'Nara-e-Taqbir,
Allah ho Akbar, Hindu jodi banchne chaho, ehi muhurte Bharat jao' (you
Hindus if you want to be alive, immediately get out to India). They
attacked Hindus with iron rods, axes, etc, smashed the Durga idol and
other idols and set fire to the pandal. Twenty-six Hindus were seriously
wounded, several Hindu women were molested and one teen-aged girl student
Kumari Sadhana Biswas was abducted. Not a single Hindu dared protest or go
to the police station to lodge a complaint. A good number of Hindus
crossed the border overnight and took shelter at Aranghata in West Bengal.
On October 19, 1996, a group of Muslims under the leadership of a local
Jamaat-e-Islaami leader, Noajul Ali, attacked the ancestral pooja pandal
of Shri Madhu Sarkar at the village of Sonadanga under the District
Satkhira, in the greater Khulna area. Shri Sarkar is a local Awami League
Councillor of Union Council of the village union. Now all his relations
fled to India, only Shri Sarkar is in Bangladesh. The mob of 500 Muslims
dragged out 27 Hindu women and raped them on an open village-road in the
broad daylight.
A few Hindu youth went to the Satkhira Police Station to lodge a complaint
but they were abused by the police who also threatened Hindus. A good
number of wounded Hindus crossed the border and now are residing in
Chakdah, Nadia District, West Bengal.
On October 18, a local army commander accompanying a Muslim leader Delawar
Hussain Khan and a good number of the Awami League, BNP and
Jamaat-i-Islami followers, attacked the only Sarbojani Durgapooja
Bandarban Pandal at the district H.O. of Bandarban in the Greater
Chittagong Hill Tract Area. Local Chakmas, Buddhists and Bengali-speaking
Hindus, who were giving finishing touches to the pandal a day before the
pooja, were attacked with sticks and rods. While all the Hindu/Buddhist
workers were being beaten up, the local army commander was cheering the
attackers. Army personnel in civil dress completely smashed the pandal and
threatened the Hindu and Buddhist with dire consequences if they uttered a
single word or lodged a complaint.
Courtesy: Organiser, Dec. 15, 1996
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