The Asiapost News

Bangladesh accused India of protecting minority populations with “double standards” on Friday. Bangladesh accused Indian media of launching a “industrial scale misinformation campaign” against Dhaka.

Asif Nazrul, the Law Affairs Adviser for the Bangladesh interim administration, stated on Facebook that India’s unjustified concern for Bangladesh persists amid a controversy surrounding the arrest of Hindu leader Chinmoy Krishna Das on sedition charges.

“There are several instances of violence against the Muslim minority in India. However, they don’t feel guilty or ashamed (about those incidents).” Nazrul remarked, “This double standard of India is unacceptable and deplorable.”

“The majority of Bangladeshis (64.1%) believe that the interim government has been able to provide better security to the country’s minority communities compared to the previous Awami League government,” Nazrul said, citing a Voice of America Bangla study.

Muhammad Yunus’s interim administration in Bangladesh, meanwhile, called on its journalists to use “truth” to refute “misinformation” in Indian media. “We must tell our stories our way or else they (Indian media) will set our narrative according to their liking,” stated Shafiqul Alam, press secretary for Chief Adviser Yunus. 

A number of Bangladeshi journalists realized it was time to address the “industrial scale misinformation campaign” originating from certain Indian media outlets and associated social media platforms, according to Alam, a former journalist, who made this statement in a Facebook post.

He added Indians should be aware that intelligent people also reside on its eastern border and that a few months ago, in one of the “finest revolutions” in human history, these people overthrew a “brutal dictatorship.”

Some may believe Indians are wiser than other people, according to Alam. “But trust me, no disinformation campaign can stop you if you are empowered by the truth.”

His remarks were made when a group of students protested against India’s alleged meddling in Bangladesh’s internal affairs on the campus of Dhaka University.

They also called for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) to be banned in Bangladesh and the extradition of Sheikh Hasina, the ousted prime minister who had fled to India in August during widespread student-led protests.

The students charged India with attempting to incite communal conflict in Bangladesh, committing “border killings,” and persecuting religion.

Additionally, they charged that the Indian government was using religious divisions to destabilize Bangladesh and escalating communal tensions there.

Every week, India murders individuals along our border. Every day, minorities in their own nation face persecution. A mosque was the scene of a recent event that claimed the lives of multiple Muslims, according to Bin Yamin Molla, head of the Student Rights Council.

Bangladesh cannot view India as a friendly country, according to Molla.

India voiced grave concern over the “surge” of extremist speech and rising violence in the neighboring country on Friday, saying the interim government in Bangladesh must fulfill its duty to protect all minorities.

India has repeatedly and vehemently brought up the threats and “targeted attacks” against Hindus and other minorities with the Bangladeshi administration, according to Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesman Randhir Jaiswal.

Das was one of 19 individuals charged with sedition at Chattogram’s Kotwali Police Station on October 30 for allegedly defaming Bangladesh’s national flag at a Hindu community rally in Chattogram’s New Market neighborhood.

Das, a representative of the Bangladesh Sammilita Sanatani Jagran Jote, was detained on suspicion of sedition on Monday at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka. Supporters protested after a Chattogram court denied him bail and sent him to jail on Tuesday.