Minorities become more victims in election violence

Joynal Abedin Shishir :

In Bangladesh, it is the people from the minority communities who fall victims to election related violence. Take for example of one Jyoti Talukdar, 70 (pseudonym), who is a Habiganj-3 Constituency voter.

In the last 2018 national election, Jyoti had to return from the polling station at the government high school center in Habiganj town.

Jyoti Talukdar expressed her experience at the time, saying, “I went and saw some polling agents of a political party standing in front of the polling station.

They stopped me from entering polling booth when I tried. Later, I was forcibly obliged to return home without voting because I had no other option.”

“I casted vote for my favorite candidate in every election,” said this 70-year-old woman, “but I couldn’t go to the center to vote in the last election. I still have regrets.”

After losing the upazila election on May 30, 2016, a political party chairman candidate and two other defeated member candidates brutally attacked a Hindu community village in Cox’s Bazar Sadar Upazila’s Khurushkul Union region. A total of 30 persons were injured.

This atrocious attack orchestrated late at night, following the announcement of the election results.

A total of 30-35 dwellings, two temples, and 10-12 shops were vandalized. It has also been reported that cows were taken away from cowsheds.

Following the national election on January 5, 2014, opponents damaged, set fire to, and robbed hundreds of Hindu homes and businesses in the village of Dinajpur Sadar Upazila.

Approximately 50 family members fled the attack in the minority village of Karnai in the Chehelgazi union and sought shelter in the home of local neighbour Rezaul Karim Raki. Whoever wins or loses the election brings disaster for minorities, including physical assault and house fires.

As a result, minorities are once again concerned about the next 12th parliamentary election on January 7. They are never able to openly and bravely cast their voting rights like majority community.

There is no exemplary punishment to ensure that the victims of this violence receive justice.

The Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee is an organization which works against ethnic minorities in elections. Minorities, according to the organization, were suppressed in various ways following the 1971 elections.

Later in 1990, during the major movement against the military rule, an attack on the minority population occurred in October.

Following the 2001 parliamentary elections, the country’s minority communities were subjected to persecuted widespread violence. Even after the national elections on January 5, 2014, there was a well-planned attack against minority populations.

The 12th national parliamentary elections are only a few days away. If all goes as well, parliamentary elections will be held on 7 January, in 2024.

The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Oikya Parishad has requested that the Election Commission identify the minority-dominated areas as ‘risky’ for voting. On Wednesday, October 12, the memorandum was delivered on behalf of the organization to the Agargaon election commission’s building in the capital.

According to the memorandum, the country’s religious and ethnic minorities are terrified and worried because Bangladesh has become a diplomatic battleground for the world’s superpowers ahead of the elections.

We also hope that all of the country’s political parties and alliances will participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections in a festival mood, therefore brightening the country’s democratic future.

Aside from that, the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Oikya Parishad urged protection for religious and ethnic minorities both before and after the election, as well as continuous patrolling by RAB and BGB and the formation of a ‘monitoring cell’, as well as the deployment of police Ansar.

Rana Dasgupta, general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Oikya Parishad, said, “There will be a game in the upcoming” political climate. This has alarmed the religious and ethnic minorities in this country, because almost all the past elections have been victimized unnecessarily in the pre-election period.”

Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal told reporters, “We have taken the issue of violence very seriously. Law-enforcement agencies will look into the matter so that there is no communal conflict or violence committed around the elections in the country.”

Biplab Barua, office secretary of the ruling political party, Awami League, said, “Those who carried out on the fuel of violence, legal action is being taken against them. Still, more political unity is needed in the country to stop it throughout.”

Nipun Roy Chowdhury, a member of the National Executive Committee of the main opposition party, BNP, said, “Most of the voting-centric persecution of minorities has been done by the ruling party’s leaders and activists. The silence of the government administration after the violence shows that the government has a beneficiary hand here.”

The Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee prepared a list of vulnerable seats for minorities around 2018.

They found that there are 96 such parliamentary risky constituencies in the country, with over 12 percent of the minority community voting on that list. Out of these, 61 constituencies were identified as the most vulnerable zone for minorities by the organization.

Shahriar Kabir, executive president of the Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee, said, “We demand that minorities be able to vote without fear like other voters in Bangladesh. State should ensure equal rights and security for 12 crore voters in voting and participating in voting so that there is no fear of being a minority.”

S. M. Ruhul Amin, additional director of the Bangladesh Police, said, “Comparing to the previous national parliamentary election, the current situation is more satisfactory. Till now, we do not have any information about communal violence or any types of threats to minority voters; there is a law-enforcement alert to prevent such types of violence in the pre- and post-election’s situation.”

However, these words of assurance will be of little or no value if the ground reality does not favour the minorities during the election period.

(The writer is a journalist.)