Hindus,Buddhists who fled to India to tell the tales of torture

[Guest guest]

nomoshkar,

please find the following news from chattogram

(chittagong) -

durga puja has been not celebrated by 1.8 crore hindus

here in bangla.

 

please find the following tragic news - again it is

back to the ages of ghaznis and aurangazeb.

 

Zizya Tax Imposed on Bangladeshi Hindus in Chattogram.

BNP candidates have

declared that in order to stay in their ancestral

homes in Bangladesh,

Hindus and other minorities will have to pay Zizya

Tax.

 

See news below from Bangladeshi newspaper:

 

http://www.hrcbm.org/images/Sangbad301001.jpg

 

Chanchal Chatterjee

Secretary

Human Rights Congress for Bangladeshi Minorities

(HRCBM)

http://www.hrcbm.org

 

Also please inform everyone you know of to sign the

special petetion to kofi annan - on hrcbm site.

http://www.petitiononline.com/HRCBM101/

please pass it to any mail groups you know of.

 

regards and dhanyabaad

 

 

Also please read the tears of victims -

http://www.dailystarnews.com/200110/30/n1103010.htm

Hindus who fled to India tell the tales of torture

 

 

 

AFP, Kolkata

 

 

Shefali Das, a Bangladeshi Hindu, holds her son in

Habra, some 45 kilometres north of Kolkata, after

 

fleeing her homeland. Hundreds of Hindu families have

crossed into India through border

 

alleging"torture".

Hundreds of Bangladeshi Hindu families have fled

across the border into India because they say they

 

have been "tortured" since an Islamist-allied

government came to power, victims and charities said

 

yesterday.

"Hindu families... are trickling into India either by

paying bribes or crossing along the remote

 

unmanned border areas," said Bimal Majumdar, general

secretary of a West Bengal-based non-governmental

 

organisation (NGO).

 

"These people are ending up in camps or going to their

distant relatives. We are making arrangement for

 

the treatment of the tortured women," Majumdar said.

 

"Some are even going to Andaman-Nicobar Islands (in

the Bay of Bengal) to begin a new life," he said.

 

Hindus and other religious minorities in predominantly

Muslim Bangladesh have alleged violence and

 

harassment since the October 1 general election which

brought the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and

 

its allies to power.

 

They said they were being targeted because they were

thought to have been supporters of the defeated

 

Awami League.

 

Sikha Rani Das, 32, told AFP she and her teenage

daughter were attacked in their village of

Burhanuddin,

 

136 kilometres south of Dhaka, on the night of October

8 by a drunken gang.

 

"It is a shame that I could not save my daughter from

their hands," she said.

 

"They attacked my husband, a shop-owner, three days

after the national election and dragged him out of

 

the house. He never returned... We lay on the marshy

paddy fields for three days, writhing in pain

 

without food and a drop of water and then walked 10

days to reach the border," she added.

 

Shefali Das, from the nearby Radhmanasapur village,

told a similar story.

 

"After my husband was chased away by some youths on

October 4, I rushed to a neighbouring Muslim family

 

for shelter. I was molested by the male members of the

family. At dawn, I left for the border with my

 

five-year-old son, hoping for a new life," she said.

 

Tarak Chandra Majumdar, a teacher at a primary school

at Piyari Mohon village in Bangladesh's Bhola

 

district, said he fled leaving his wife behind.

 

"The fundamentalists were first targeting male members

of the Hindu families and forcing them to leave

 

the villages. Then they started molesting the women at

random. Even a girl of eight or nine years was

 

not spared."

 

Majumdar, who was an assistant presiding officer at a

polling station during the election in Bangladesh,

 

claimed BNP supporters were behind the attacks on

Hindu families.

 

"Before the elections, they had threatened that Hindus

would have to leave the country, if they came to

 

power.

 

"It is a game to grab the properties of the Hindus by

creating a reign of terror with the help of

 

administration," he added.

 

Bidhu Bhusan Das, a resident of Kalir Bazar, a

Hindu-dominated village in the Bhola district, said:

 

"When the election was over, the BNP activists looted

my belongings. They beat me up and threw me in a

 

canal. I hid below a culvert and headed for the border

at the first opportunity."

 

But Bangladeshi Home Secretary Saadat Husain said he

had no knowledge of the incidents, although he said

 

there had been some violence, looting and intimidation

immediately after the election.

 

"But since then things have changed and there had been

no reports of major violence or intimidation.

 

They have been contained and nothing is happening

now."

 

Husain said the government had taken adequate security

measures for the safety and security of the

 

minority communities.

 

The deputy commissioner of the Bhola area, Kabir

Mohammd Ashraf Alam, said the allegations were

 

exaggerated and said he had received no reports of

Hindus fleeing to India.

 

"We have been having regular interactions with the

Hindu and other community leaders i

and none of them made any such complaint."

 

dhannabad,

malti

 

 

 

__________

Nokia Game is on again.

Go to http://uk./nokiagame/ and join the new

all media adventure before November 3rd.