“East Pakistan”: Bangladesh arrests Hindu monk protesting Islamists’ atrocities
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: After more than three months of relentless attacks on Hindu properties and other atrocities on the minority community, the Jamaat-e-Islami-led Islamist government of Mohammed Yunus on Monday arrested a prominent Hindu monk for leading an agitation against the mayhem that began with the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina Wajed regime in August.
Chittagong-based Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, also known as Chinmoy Prabhu, who led protests against atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh, was arrested by the Dhaka Police’s Detective Branch on Monday, after detaining him at Dhaka airport, the media reported.
He is one of the 18 people charged with alleged “sedition,” in Bangladesh which is racing to drop the word ‘secular’ from its Constitution and become a full-blooded Islamic country, amid reports of Dhaka cozying up with Islamabad.
Before coming to Dhaka, Chinmoy Prabhu had addressed a massive protest rally in the communal violence-hit country’s Rangpur on Friday last week against Islamists’ relentless crimes against Hindus in Bangladesh.
This development came amid heightened tensions in Bangladesh over the exponentially rising reports of violence against Hindus, including attacks on their temples, homes, and businesses.
Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, the President of Pundarik Dham in Bangladesh, was among those 18 people charged with sedition for hoisting a saffron flag in Bangladesh.
The sedition case came at a time when Hindu organizations held a large gathering to press an eight-point charter of demand, including a tribunal to prosecute those targeting minorities, bringing a law on minority protection, and establishing a ministry for minorities.
A large number of incidents of violence against minorities in Bangladesh have been reported in the past four months after the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed.
Bangladesh has been embroiled in unrest since June 2024 because of massive protests, which initially started as an alleged “students’ agitation,” led by Jamaat-e-Islami, a fundamentalist Islamist organization, over quotas in government jobs but quickly turned anti-Hasina government and anti-Hindu.
Following the ouster of Hasina and her escape to India, mobs routinely vandalized and looted businesses and houses of Hindus and even lynched them.
Nobel Peace Laureate economist Muhammad Yunus, seen as the frontman of outgoing US President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party, after taking over as the head of the Bangladesh interim government, urged the safety of the minorities, stressing that they too are the citizens of the country and enjoy equal rights.
