Attacks on Hindus ‘isolated acts’: Dhaka as India flags persecution
Says Hadi’s killers escaped to India; New Delhi rubbishes claims
India and Bangladesh were engaged in parallel diplomatic and security exchanges on Sunday, with Dhaka downplaying concerns raised by New Delhi over the treatment of minorities, calling it an “inaccurate, exaggerated or motivated narrative that does not reflect facts”.
Bangladesh foreign ministry spokesperson SM Mahbubul Alam alleged there were “systematic attempts to portray the isolated incidents of criminal acts as systemic persecution of the Hindus and maliciously used to propagate anti-Bangladesh sentiments” in different parts of India.
Dhaka also claimed that the killers of Inquilab Moncho leader Sharif Osman Hadi had fled to India. The police in Bangladesh said two prime suspects in the December 12 killing of Hadi had crossed over to Meghalaya. Indian security agencies dismissed the claim as “unfounded and misleading”, asserting that no such infiltration had taken place.
At a press briefing in Dhaka, Additional Police Commissioner SN Md Nazrul Islam alleged that suspects Faisal Karim Masud and Alamgir Sheikh entered India through the Haluaghat border with the help of local associates and later reached Tura in Meghalaya. He said Dhaka was in touch with Indian authorities through formal and informal channels to facilitate their arrest and extradition.
Rejecting the claim, Meghalaya Frontier BSF Inspector General OP Opadhyay said there was “no evidence” of any cross-border movement from the Haluaghat sector. A senior Meghalaya police officer also said there was no intelligence input to suggest the suspects’ presence in the Garo Hills region.
Hadi, 32, was shot during an election campaign in Dhaka and later died in Singapore. A youth leader who rose to prominence during the 2024 mass protests, Hadi was also a candidate in the February 12 parliamentary elections.
On Friday, the Ministry of External Affairs said the “unremitting hostilities” against minorities in Bangladesh were a matter of “grave concern”. It demanded punishment for the perpetrators involved in the lynching of a Hindu youth in the Mymensingh area last week.
“The unremitting hostilities against the minorities in Bangladesh, including Hindus, Christians and Buddhists, at the hands of extremists is a matter of grave concern,” MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had said.
