No targeted attacks, claims chief of B'desh force; minorities rebut

The chief of Bangladesh's border force on Wednesday claimed that minorities were not attacked in the country after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government, even as the country's largest minority rights group said the targeted violence was continuing and the interim government was not protecting minorities.

- Prawesh Lama

NEW DELHI:

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) director general Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, who was in Delhi for the 55th Director General-Level Border Coordination Conference, said the violence in the aftermath of the regime change was "a political problem" as he called the reports by independent agencies and media on the communal attacks "exaggerated."

"The reports of attacks on minorities in the recent past, I would say, that this is an exaggeration, and to be honest, such attacks on minorities per se did not happen. The violence was not against minorities. It was maybe a bit of a political problem," he said in reply to a question at a joint press conference with Border Security Force (BSF) chief Daljit Singh Chawdhary.

The senior official's statement was rejected by the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, an umbrella group of minorities, which said that the government itself had ordered investigations into attacks on minorities.

"The attacks are continuing. Between August 31 and December 31, 2024, we traced 174 incidents of attacks on minorities. Even the press secretary of the interim government had in October confirmed that minorities were attacked, and a probe was ordered. Can the officials in Bangladesh deny that temples were targeted? How can anyone deny the attacks?" the group's acting secretary, Monindra Kumar Nath said.