AWAMI League leader Suranjit Sengupta has criticised the government for failing to prevent attacks on Hindus. The High Court ‘directed the government to provide adequate security to the minority community who came under attacks across the country after the January 5 general election.’ Why did the High Court direct the government, not others, to do so? It’s because legally the responsibility falls solely on the government though the moral responsibility falls on all in the country. A government should not sit idle and pointing the finger of blame to other quarters. There is little sincerity in this blame game when some past incidents are still fresh in people’s memory.
In the past few months people saw the ugly face of the AL-BNP-JP-Jamaat politics. People paid the price of this politics with their lives as well as having their livelihood undermined. Attack on Hindus is the product of this same bankrupt politics which has become akin to a business enterprise. Many poor people of Bangladesh cannot read and write and so they have never seen what is put down in the constitution. Even though they do not know what is in that book, they are very liberal and will never be communal. At the same time, these people live in a society that is controlled by that above-mentioned politics. Elements of that politics see a financial interest in displacing poor people of the minority community, and take advantage of their vulnerability during a volatile political situation. The government sits idle, making speeches about anti-Hindu politics of some other parties.
If the heinous types of the political violence that occurred in the past months are taken into account, very little difference can be seen between the majority and the minority people when they are poor. Poor people have been used as hostages for promoting the interests of those parties that have enjoyed state power so long. Being a Hindu just worsens this vulnerability. That this government which could stage such a farcical election by terrorising the opposition with unprecedented force just cannot prevent the attack and also cannot catch the culprits is utterly unbelievable. At present, this most powerful AL government is capable of doing anything for the betterment of the country’s people except two things, one, launching a rocket to the moon, though not improbable in the future, and two, protecting the religious minorities from attacks and bringing the culprits involved to justice.