Shipan Kumer Basu with Israeli diplomat Mendi Safadi
In recent times, the Bangladeshi Hindu community has been persecuted immensely by the Awami League government. Due to this horrendous oppression experienced by the Bangladeshi Hindu community, Shipan Kumar Basu, the head of the Hindu Struggle Committee, seeks to topple the Awami League government and has asked for Israeli assistance in doing this: “We will establish diplomatic relations with Israel if they will help us topple the Bangladeshi government. Israel will then be able to establish business ties with Bangladesh. Israel has nothing to lose and on the other hand, there will be another friend.”
Basu claims that there is grounds to overthrow the Awami League government since the removal of the Hindu Chief Justice was unconstitutional, a move that is presently being challenged in court: “Recently, the Hindu community has faced many atrocities committed by the ruling party and their personnel. A young Hindu college boy was kidnapped and his body was found in the main office of the ruling party. A Hindu teacher was raped in front of her husband at work. Her husband, who came to see her at the school, was severely beaten up and locked in a different room. There have been numerous incidents like this in our country after the constitutional amendment crisis.”
The constitutional amendment crisis began when the ruling party in Bangladesh sought to impose the 16th amendment, which the Bangladeshi Chief Justice considered unconstitutional. The 16th amendment empowers the parliament to remove Supreme Court justices if allegations of incapability and misconduct are proven to be true. The Bangladeshi Chief justice believed that an independent judicial body and not the parliament should determine whether allegations of incapability and misconduct are proven to be true since the sham elections of 2014 illustrated that the parliament was not an impartial democratic body.
The ruling Awami League Party was furious with the Chief Justice for this ruling. Since they appointed him, they expected him to be on their side rather than to be an impartial judge. Since then Bangladeshi Chief Justice Surendra Kumer Sinha was Hindu, the entire Hindu community within Bangladesh has been targeted. According to Basu, “The hatred within the Awami League Party against Hindus has risen to new dimensions. As long as the Hindus followed the Awami League like slaves, they were given the status of being second class citizens within the country. Now, when the Hindus have risen up and spoken against the Awami league Party, they have become wild and ferocious against the Hindus and have started to crush them with their feet.”
“An Awami League leader recently threatened in a public rally that if the Hindus don’t vote for him, he will kill all of the Hindus,” Basu related. “Silence is not a solution for this situation. The Hindus are in real trouble in Bangladesh and if drastic action is not taken immediately, all of the Hindus will be compelled to flee to India. The State of Israel has stood up for the minorities of the world that are in distress. In our hour of need, I invite the State of Israel to solemnly stand by the neglected and tortured Hindus of Bangladesh, so they can be relieved of the suppression, torture and crisis they endure in their own country.”
