নিজস্ব প্রতিনিধি

বাংলাদেশের ধর্মীয় সংখ্যালঘু সম্প্রদায়ের নিরাপত্তায় যথাযথ পদক্ষেপ গ্রহণের আহবান জানিয়েছেন যুক্তরাষ্ট্রস্থ বাংলাদেশ হিন্দু-বৌদ্ধ-খ্রিস্টান ঐক্য পরিষদ’র নেতৃবৃন্দ। গণমাধ্যমে প্রদত্ত খোলাচিঠিতে এই সংগঠনের সাধারণ সম্পাদক বিষ্ণু গোপ, তিন সভাপতি ডা. টমাস দুলু রায়, ড. দ্বীজেন ভট্টাচার্য এবং রনবীর বড়য়া ও নির্বাহী কমিটির ও পরিচালনা পরিষদের পক্ষে চেয়ারম্যান অধ্যাপক নবেন্দু দত্ত স্বাক্ষর করেছেন। বাংলাদেশে আইনের শাসন বলতে কিছুই নেই উল্লেখ করে অবিলম্বে চিন্ময় কৃষ্ণদাসের নি:শর্ত মুক্তি, সংখ্যালঘুদের নিরাপত্তায় অবিলম্বে একটি আইন পাশ-সহ বেশ কিছু দাবি উপস্থাপন করা হয়েছে প্রধানমন্ত্রী তারেক রহমান সমীপে। এখানে খোলাচিঠি হুবহু উপস্থাপন করা হলো।

An open letter to

Prime Minister Honourable Tarique Rahman
Act now to stop lynching and incarceration of non-Muslim religious and ethnic minorities in Bangladesh on fabricated charges of blasphemy, Who massacred the family of retired Hindu
minority schoolteacher Ganapati Chakraborty in Rangpur on August 21, 2026? We seek neither infantile narratives nor the scapegoating of individuals in the name of delivering instant “justice.” We seek the truth, genuine justice, and a permanent solution to the existential crisis facing Bangladesh’s religious & ethnic minorities.
Unconditionally release Prisoner of Religious Conscience Hindu monk   Shri Chinmoy Krishna Das

The Honourable Tarique Raham
Prime Minister
People’s Republic of Bangladesh

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

Welcome to the City of New York and to the United Nations!

We sincerely hope that you will receive the strong support from the international community necessary not only to advance Bangladesh’s economy but also to guide the country toward better democratic governance, free from corruption, repression of the political opposition, media and free thinkers, terrorism, and the relentlessly raging campaign of religious and ethnic cleansing that religious extremists continue to carry out with total impunity.

Mr. Prime Minister, the people of Bangladesh overwhelmingly voted you into power at a critical juncture when both democracy and the very history of our independence movement to establish a
secular, democratic nation in 1971 faced an existential threat. Moderate Muslims and the country’s religious and ethnic minorities alike welcomed your party’s victory and your assumption of the office of Prime Minister, hoping that, having lived in the United Kingdom, one of the world’s renowned secular-democratic nations, for a long time, you would protect and promote democracy and safeguard the equal rights of all citizens, regardless of their gender, ethnicity, or religious affiliation.

We were deeply heartened by your promise that the religious and ethnic minorities of the country would be treated as “equal” citizens. We have, therefore, remain hopeful that you will take meaningful steps to address the existential crisis facing the country’s minorities.
Unfortunately, however, the campaign of atrocities including daily humiliation by denigration, persecution and torture; the desecration and destruction of deities and temples; looting; arson;
kidnaping; rape; forced conversion; the murder of entire families; denial of access to employment; incarceration; denial of justice; and lynching based on fabricated charges of blasphemy, has continued unabated. Most importantly, the denial of justice, a systemic problem that has plagued the nation for decades, has also persisted. The reign of terror unleashed by the religious extremists against the minorities on August 4, 2024, and which raged with full fury under the interim government led by Nobel Peace Laureate Dr. Yuns, has not ceased.
In the absence of media reporting on minority persecution, Human Rights Congress for Bangladeshi Minorities reported 824 incidents of horrifying violence against the country’s minorities in a six-month period between Januray1 and June 30, 2026 (www.hrcbm.org, July 23, 2026). This report is corroborated by the report published on July 27, 2026 by Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christan Oikya Parishad (www.bhbcop.org). According to their report, while “2,184 incidents of atrocities were conducted against the minorities between August 5, 2024, and December 31, 2024; 522 atrocities were conducted during the year 2025; and 257 between January 2026 and June 30, 2026 (partial), out of which 44 were incidents of murder.”
Mr. Prime Minister, in the face of blatant discrimination, intermittent pogroms and massacres, such as the Logang Massacre, Baniar Char Massacre, and the pogroms in Ramu, Nasir Nagar, Abhay Nagar, Guimara-Khagrachari, as well as horrifying hate crimes such as the lynching of Dipu Chandra Das, which was accompanied by a mass celebration by the religious extremists of burning an “infidel” alive with fanfare, tens of millions of Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians of the country have been forced to flee the country, only to live as undocumented aliens in neighboring India, and elsewhere around the world. Consequently, whereas the minorities of Bangladesh who represented approximately 20% of the total population in late 1970, they represent a mere 9% or less today (Bangladesh Census Report 2022).
On July 28, 2011, Hon. Robert Dold reported to the U.S. Congress that, since 1947, 49 million Hindus were “missing” from Bangladesh’s population (https://www.youtube.com/watch v=LQOghIetg3Q)/.
Professor Dastidar, who was cited by Hon. Robert Dold, now estimates, as of November 14, 2025, that the number stands at 70 million today. Extremely sadly, according to Professor Abul Barakat’s statistical analysis of the past rate of exodus they, specifically the Hindus, are predicted to become extinct by 2046: “No Hindus will be left after 30 years” (November 20, 2016, Dhaka Tribune). Whenever the intensity of this vicious campaign of hate crimes escalated dramatically, our predecessors such as Nobel Peace Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus during August 2024 and early February 2026, tried to cover them up by falsely arguing that they were not targeted acts of minority persecution but rather the result of “poor law and order.” Indeed, they are hate crimes; we have historically witnessed only the places of worship of the Hindus, Buddhists and Christians being desecrated and burned down, entire minority neighborhood set ablaze on Christmas Eve, and nationwide coordinated attacks on the Hindus during their highest holiday of the year—Durga Pooja, for example. Given that the minorities share of the population is only 9%, if 91% of such atrocities were conducted against the Muslims, only then one could attribute them to “poor law and order” situation. Although your government has not taken recourse to such despicable chicanery—and we appreciate that—, your Home Affairs Minister or the army, which serve as Peace Keepers for the United Nations around the world, have not taken any meaningful actions to stop this vicious campaign either, which has been interpreted by the religious extremists as impunity. Nevertheless, we still expect you to deliver on your promise.
For Bangladesh to become part of the international community of civilized democratic nations, which must be your goal as the country’s prime minister, the ongoing carnage of religious and ethnic cleansing must stop immediately and once for all. This can only be achieved by first acknowledging that the atrocities facing Bangladesh’s minorities constitute deliberate hate crimes and identifying the reasons why the non-Muslim minorities are being treated like an expendable commodity. The next step ought to be establishing a formidable and sustainable mechanism to effectively deal with this issue. Such a mechanism must possess adequate judicial tools to address the thousands of pending
cases of minority persecution that were submitted to your predecessor by the Judge Sahabuddin Commission in 2011, confront ongoing atrocities, and act as a deterrent against future sectarian violence targeting the country’s minorities.
By incorporating highly effective legal provisions that other nations have developed to protect their minorities from bigoted religious and racial supremacists, such as the Hate Speech and Crime Law in the United States, we have drafted a Minority Protection Act bill, which we will email to your office along with this letter shortly.
Since the entire nation, including the country’s minorities, voted you to power with an overwhelming majority, and since your party enjoys absolute majority in parliament, you can easily accomplish this extremely important goal if you have the will to do so.
According to national as well as international experts on what motivates religious and ethnic cleansing, the atrocities are occurring in Bangladesh for two primary reasons: i. A large segment of the country’s population is taught from childhood, by private religious tutors and through waz sermons that non-Muslims are “infidels,” “dirty,” and “inferior even to animals” and, therefore, must be shunned. They are additionally instructed by many clerics through video instructions that it is an obligation for every Muslim to destroy non-Muslims’ deities and temples, and that seizing their property and using their women for sexual gratification is not only not a crime but also not a sinful act.ii. Perpetrators of atrocities against minorities have never been prosecuted or punished, except in a handful of internationally known cases involving rape and murder, thus sending out a clear and loud signal that eliminating the minorities through violence is not a punishable offense at all.
There are multiple Muslim majority nations in the world, where such practices are not encouraged. Consequently, in countries such as Indonesia and Lebanon, the non-Muslims are not specifically targeted for elimination through violence. Bangladesh, where Hindus and Muslims have lived side by side in intercommunal harmony for centuries, can also follow those nations rather than following Pakistan or Afghanistan.
Mr. Prime Minister, you know that in the United States, where you are now, minorities have served as the country’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Defense Minister, Chief of Army Staff, and even President.
Whereas minority empowerment is the norm in civilized world, today; but, in Bangladesh, by contrast, almost all minority citizens holding respectable positions anywhere, including in the education sector, have been forced to resign or removed by force, in the past two years. You spent a substantial part of your life in a civilized European nation where you witnessed firsthand how the minorities are treated Hence, naturally, we have higher expectations of you. We expect you to deliver on the promises you made both during your election campaign and after assuming the office of Prime Minister, specifically about “equal” rights of all citizens of the country.
Based on our hope that you will indeed endeavour to transform Bangladesh into civilized nation where people of all faiths and ethnicities can live with human dignity, religious freedom, and equal rights as citizens of the country, we humbly seek the following reliefs form you and your party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP): Immediate Relief Sought:
i. Immediately and unconditionally release Prisoner of Religious Conscience Shri Chinmoy Krishna Das, who has been imprisoned on fictitious sedition and murder charges for two years simply because he had demanded that the Chief of the Interim Government Nobel Peace Laureate Dr. Yunus take action to safeguard the minorities’ religious freedom, stop atrocities against the
minorities, and bring the criminals to justice.
ii. Immediately release all the members of minority communities who have been incarcerated under the Digital Security Act, which is currently serving as a substitute for Blasphemy Law.
iii. Immediately stop the practice of propagating hatred through textbooks, classroom instructions, and waz sermons through an executive order. Relevant actors should be required to teach that, “All humans are equal, their lives and property equally precious, and we should treat others as we would like to be treated.”
iv. Immediately take concrete measures to stop the ongoing practice of threatening to burn Hindus and other minorities alive and forcing them to convert or leave the country.
v. Immediately fully implement the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord.

Permanent Relief Sought:
I. Please pass the Minority Protection Act by using the draft bill we are sending to you along with this memorandum. Please note that, for this measure to be effective, this Act must include
the provisions establishing:
— Designation of the religious and ethnic minorities as “minorities”
— A Hate Speech & Crime Law incorporating all the provisions we have included
— A Minority Affairs Ministry
— A Minority Human Rights Commission
— A Minority Religious Foundation modeled exactly on the existing Islamic Foundation, which was created in 1974.
Mr. Prime Minister, the minorities of Bangladesh are extremely vulnerable. You cannot possibly protect them, even if you sincerely want to, without enacting a comprehensive and formidable Minority Protection Act. Having strong laws in place matter. Anarchy would reign supreme unless nations had strict laws and those laws were strictly implemented. Please recall that, in the 1980s we witnessed to our horror young women’s faces being disfigured every now and then by thugs by throwing acid at them simply because they refused to comply with their lewd demands. After your mother, former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, enacted the Acid Aparadh Daman Ain “Acid Crime Control Act of 2002” explicitly classifying acid attacks as a heinous criminal offense with severe penalties, including life imprisonment and even the death penalty, this horrifying social evil disappeared forever.
We are asking you to do just that. The goal of the proposed Minority Protection Act is actually intended to serve primarily as a strong deterrent against future acts of sectarian violence against
Bangladesh’s religious and ethnic minorities just as the Acid Crime Control Act of 2002 has not only deterred but almost completely eliminated acid attack on young women.
We fervently hope that you will consider our proposal seriously and take immediately action to protect the country’s minority citizens. The minorities of Bangladesh would remain eternally grateful to you for this act, which will enable them to continue to live in their ancestral homeland, peacefully.
We wish you a long, healthy, and productive life.
Thank you for your anticipated action.
Sincerely,
Bishnu Gope, General Secretary
Dr. Thomas Dulu Roy, Dwijen Bhattacharjya, Ph. D., and Ranabir Barua, Presidents
Professor Nabendu Dutta, Chairman
On Behalf of the
Executive Committee and Board of Directors
Of
Bangladeshi Hindu, Buddhist & Christian Unity Council, USA