Refugee status sought for Hindu migrants from Bangladesh

KOLKATA: Dayarani Ketri, a 12-yearold girl was gunned down by the BSF while she was sneaking into India at Bindol border (north Dinajpur) in September 2001. Her brother, who also sustained bullet injuries, told newsmen that the family had fled their home in Thakurgaon district on the other side of the border to escape sexual and other atrocities on Hindu families in Bangladesh.Indeed, a large number of alleged Bangladeshi ‘infiltrators’ are actually persecuted Hindus from that country.
According to the affidavit filed by the West Bengal government in the Supreme Court in 1998, of the total 10,24,322 Bangladeshis who overstayed in India since 1972, as many as 6,67500 were Hindus. A total of 5,73,334 Bangladeshi nationals including 1,61,077 Hindus,who had entered ‘clandestinely’, were pushed back during the same period.
Bangladeshi liberals, fighting homegrown fundamentalists, reveal that many more people had to flee Bangladesh after Hindus faced intimidation, threats and worse during the last general election in October 2001. The persecution continued, they pointed out, even after the Prime minister Khaleda Zia dismissed the reports. Vote Observation for Transparency and Empowerment, a Bangladeshi NG0, recorded 102 rapes, 87 murders and 3545 injuries during 2-28 October 2001 alone, exposing the extent of postpoll violence on minorities.
Shahariar Kabir, Ahmed Sharif, Shamsur Rahman, Rashed Menon, Abdul Gaffar Choudhury, Kabir Choudhury, Abed Khan, Salam Azad as well as Taslima Nasrin and many others have pointed out that Islamisation of Bangaldesh by the generals, at the cost of the pluralist and nationalist ideals of the liberation war, has accelerated persecution and exodus of minorities. Post-Babri nineties also witnessed competitive communal violence in Bangladesh and India, bleeding minorities in both countries.
Salam Azad, in his study ‘Hindura keno deshtyag karche’ compiled incidents of atrocities and estimated that at least 475 Hindus were leaving Bangladesh every day in the nineties while their land and property worth 60,000 crore taka had been taken over by erstwhile neighbours.
Expert in Kolkata Amalendu De quoted Bangladesh census reports to show that the percentage of the Hindu population had decreased from 28 per cent in 1941 to 10.5 per cent in 1991. According to him, 1.28 crore Hindus entered India between 1947-89. Ratneswar Bhattacharya, in his study ‘Sankhalaghu Bitaran: Bangladesh’ has pointed to the inclusion in electoral rolls of persecuted Bangladeshi minorities while explaining population boom in bordering districts of West Bengal.
While experts differ on figures, many observers like De want recognition of Hindus as ‘refugees’. Bhattacharya wanted the Centre to pressure Bangladesh to stop persecution of its minorities. But others like Subboranjan Dasgupta and Abdur Rauf pinned their hope on the joint resistance by the civil society of Bangladesh and its minorities.