New Delhi: A sedition case against prominent Hindu religious leader Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari and several others has sparked outrage among sections of the minority Hindu community in Bangladesh.
Brahmachari, along with others belonging to the Hindu community, allegedly
hoisted a saffron flag over the Bangladesh national flag at Chittagong’s New Market intersection on 25 October. Kotwali police booked them under various penal code sections on 30 October.
“Chattogram Metropolitan Police Additional Deputy Commissioner (Public Relations) Kazi Md Tarek Aziz said that two people, Rajesh Chowdhury and Hriday Das, have already been arrested in connection with the case,” bdnews24.com reported on Thursday.
Brahmachari, a leader of the Bangladesh Sanatan Jagaran Mancha, has been at the forefront of recent protests by Hindus against targeted attacks on them since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led government on 5 August this year.
“If anyone wants to evict us from this country and live in peace, it will become Afghanistan or Syria. There will be no democratic force. Bangladesh will become a sanctuary of communalism,” Brahmachari said at the latest gathering of Hindus in Chittagong on 25 October.
After the anti-discrimination students’ movement forced Hasina to flee to India, the national flag was unfurled from a pole that was planted at the New Market Square. During the Sanatan Jagaran Mancha’s 25 October protest, Brahmachari and the others allegedly placed a saffron flag over the Bangladesh flag. The image of the flags went viral on social media. Subsequently, the saffron flag was removed.
In the chargesheet, Brahmachari and the others have been accused of engaging in sedition by disrespecting the national flag with the intent to “undermine the country’s sovereignty and create unrest while aiming to destabilise the state by displaying a religious flag above the national flag”.
“Where will Sanatanis in Bangladesh go,” Bangladeshi journalist Avijit Majumder Hridoy wrote in a Facebook post. “At the Laldighi maidan in Chittagong, almost two lakh Hindus had congregated to demand their rights. We had gone there to demand for our rights. We got cases slapped against us instead.”
Many rights leaders in Bangladesh are seeing the police move against Brahmachari as a deliberate attempt to force Hindus to remain quiet about their persecution.
Bangladeshi Hindu rights activist Jayanta Karmakar told ThePrint over a call that the police’s targeting of Brahmachari will not be tolerated. “We have no option but to fight back now. This is a fight for our survival before Hindus become extinct in Bangladesh. The protest against the sedition case needs to go global,” he said.
The sedition case comes close on the heels of a Hindu boy facing mob ire for allegedly insulting Prophet Muhammad on a Facebook post. The boy was picked up, taken into army custody and tortured allegedly, according to a BBC News Bangla report.
Brahmachari has been vocal about the Bangladesh Sanatan Jagaran Mancha’s eight-point demands. These include establishing a special tribunal for swift trials in cases of minority persecution, ensuring compensation and rehabilitation for victims, enacting a minority protection law to ensure security and rights for minorities and other laws to recover and protect ‘Debottar (temple)’ properties, and creating a minority affairs ministry to address the specific needs and issues of minority groups.
On 12 September, Bangladesh’s leading newspaper, Prothom Alo, put out an investigative report on attacks on minorities in Bangladesh after Hasina’s exit. “According to the findings of investigations carried out by Prothom Alo’s correspondents all over the country (64 districts and 67 upazilas), attacks on the minority community took place in 49 districts. They saw 546 of the damaged houses and business establishments, that is, 51 per cent of the total damaged structures,” the report said.
Brahmachari has put out a video on social media, saying a malicious attempt is under way to derail the Sanatani movement in Bangladesh. He appealed to Hindus in Bangladesh to continue the movement for their rights and dignity even if he is arrested.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)