Attacks, misinformation frighten Bangladeshi Hindus

Young Bangladeshi professional Tanushree Shaha is outraged by recent mob violence against her family in the chaotic wake of premier Sheikh Hasina’s ouster from power, fearful that her fellow Hindus could face more reprisals.

Those fears, however justified, are being turbocharged by a wave of false rumours of other, deadly attacks being spread online and amplified by the media in Hindu-majority neighbour India.

Hindus are the largest minority faith in mostly Muslim Bangladesh and are considered a steadfast support base for Hasina’s party, the Awami League.

After Hasina’s abrupt resignation and flight abroad on Monday brought an end to her 15 years of autocratic rule, numerous Hindu families came into the cross hairs of their neighbours.

“A group of people vandalised my uncle’s shop,” said Shaha, the 31-year-old manager of a handicrafts business in the capital Dhaka.

She told reporters the mob had stolen his cash till and emptied the shelves of his grocery store further north in the city of Mymensingh.

They then beat him and demanded more money to prevent future attacks.

Shaha was standing with more than 1,000 Hindus at a boisterous rally near Dhaka University, where the student protests that toppled Hasina began last month.

The group had gathered to demand the country’s new interim government, led by Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, urgently protect members of their faith from harm.

But Shaha said the animosity towards Hindus ran deeper than the national upheaval of the past month.

“Whenever a government falls or a problem arises, we are victimised by opportunists,” she said.

Hindus account for around 8 per cent of Bangladesh’s 170 million people.

That is a sharp fall from 1947, when the haphazard partition of India and Pakistan