Chicago: Dr. Richard L. Benkin, human rights activist who is fighting to stop the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh, recently returned after several weeks in South Asia, from large cities to remote villages to areas along India’s border.
His findings reveal that the cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh is a systematic affair and the Bangladesh Government is allegedly involved in this heinous task. His major findings were:
• Bangladesh’s government-complicity ethnic cleansing of Hindus, which has reduced that population from almost a third to less than eight percent in East Bengal, continues in force.
• It has spilled over into West Bengal, India.
• He is working with three groups struggling for their national independence from Pakistani occupation. Two are Sunni Muslim (Baloch and Pashtun); one is Sindhi. Benkin has set up a pipeline to receive evidence of Pakistani human rights violations against these peoples, whose independence pre-dates Pakistan itself and in many cases was suppressed by British occupiers.
• Pakistan could be using aid and materiel provided by the United States to suppress its own Baloch, Pashtun, and Sindhi citizens, instead of using it to fight terrorism as intended
• ISIS is firmly established in India’s neighboring countries where it is carrying out violent acts against foreigners, minorities, and anyone else it considers an enemy of its radical agenda.
• ISIS has now established a beachhead in India, which Benkin has seen and continues to have investigated. It is located near other Islamist offices, with which it could be coordinating efforts.
Benkin finds bi-partisan support on Capitol Hill
In his bid to enlighten US lawmakers Dr Richard Benkin, recently engaged Senators, Members of Congress, and their staff in a trip to Washington on May 24.
He pitched for their support to stop the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh, and now also to stop human rights violations against the Baloch, Pashtun, and Sindhi communities by Pakistan; There is a growing concern with Pakistan’s misuse of US largesse;
• Evidence is being gathered to show that US aid materiel is being used to commit human rights violations against the Baloch, Pashtun, and Sindhi.
• Benkin found a growing awareness on Capitol Hill that Bangladesh is not a moderate Muslim nation; rather a hotbed of radicalism.
• The ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh is made worse by Bangladesh’s tolerance for Islamists and its complicity in their crimes.
During his meetings, Benkin discussed specific strategies and legal issues that will enable us to address these issues and be effective in stopping the atrocities.
Dr Richard L. Benkin is the author or A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing: the Murder of Bangladesh’s Hindus, now in its second printing; and has been going to South Asia for ten years, gathering and verifying data on human rights atrocities against Hindus; on the spread of radicalism there; its threat to us; and what we can do to stop it.
He has made himself available for interviews and press conferences where he will bring additional evidence of these human rights violations.
Concern at continuing murders
Madhu Patel adds:
Members of Indian American community across the country are deeply concerned at continuing violence and murders of Hindus in Bangladesh; as a second Hindu citizen was killed in a week in Bangladesh; which was the fifth such brutal murder in recent months.
A Hindu ashram worker in his early 60s was hacked to death in Pabna district in north-western Bangladesh on June 10 while on his morning walk. His body was later found lying in a pool of blood, reports suggest.
According to reports, on June 7, a 69-year-old Hindu priest was found decapitated in a rice field in Noldanga village in western Jhenaidah district. A Hindu shop owner was hacked to death outside his store in a northern district late last month, and a Hindu tailor was hacked to death in his shop in April.
In February, another Hindu priest at a temple was stabbed to death and a devotee, who came to his aid, was shot and Rajan Zed, president of Universal Society of Hinduism said that it was shocking to observe the hard-working, harmonious and peaceful Bangladesh Hindu community (who made up about 8-9% of the country’s population) receiving such signals of hatred and intimidation
President Md. Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of People’s Republic of Bangladesh are urged to take this issue seriously and urgently and launch swift action to put an end to such crimes resulting in systematic brutal murders of Hindus.
Adequate security measures should be put in place to protect the Bangladesh Hindu population and both Hamid and Hasina should immediately meet the Hindu community in various regions of the country to reassure them.
Prasad Yalamanchi
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