BANGLADESH, February 10, 2014 (The Daily Star by Abbas Faiz, Amnesty International’s Bangladesh Researcher): For anyone who has followed the news from Bangladesh since the country’s January 5 elections, the last few weeks’ headlines have made for grim reading. Dozens have been killed in the street protests that raged across Bangladesh during the weeks around the vote, and with the opposition boycotting the elections and questioning the legitimacy of the new government, the political crisis shows no sign of letting up
But behind the headlines, there are hidden victims that have not gotten the attention they deserve — Bangladesh’s minority Hindu community. Comprising around 10% of the population, Hindus have become hostage to the political confrontation between governing and opposition party supporters. As these parties have violently fought each other in the streets, Hindus have been terrorized, their homes and shops set on fire, their belongings looted and their temples vandalized. Many have left their homes, some have fled to India.
If it is difficult to establish who exactly is attacking Hindus, the reasons behind the violence are even more complex. Tension between the Hindu and Muslim communities dates back to at least the 1947 separation of Pakistan from India, then in East Pakistan and later Bangladesh (after its independence in 1971).
Historically, attacks against Hindus have been aimed at forcing them to abandon their land and livelihood. Such land has then been transferred to their Muslim neighbors or powerful land owners under the Vested Property Act of 1974, a law that in practice allows confiscation of Hindu land if claimants can prove the land has been “abandoned.” The law itself, corruption and lack of justice, makes confiscation easy, and many Hindus have lost their properties over the years.
More at source.