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The Bangladesh High Court on Saturday asked the government to explain why it should not be ordered to take action to protect the country's religious minorities from terrorist attacks and harassment.
Acting on a petition by the Ain-o-Shalish Kendra (ASK) organisation, a division bench of the court comprising justices M A Matin and Marziul Huq issued a show cause notice asking the government for an explanation within four weeks.
The ASK petition cites its own investigation and newspaper reports about atrocities committed against nearly 30 million minorities, including about 20 million Hindus, in Muslim-dominated Bangladesh.
The petition urges a court directive to the home ministry and the police in the face of their failure to discharge their constitutional obligations.
The court will on Tuesday hear the petition for punishment of people, identified in investigations, for perpetrating pre-and-post election attacks on the Hindu community and other incidents.
A Bangladesh National Party-led four-party nationalist alliance came to power in the October 1 poll. Since then, newspapers have been flooded with reports about alleged persecution of the minorities by activists of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's BNP and its rightwing alliance partner Jamaat-e-Islami.
The petition states that since the announcement of the election schedule for the eighth parliament, religious minorities perceived to be supporters of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League came under various threats, attacks, looting of properties and sexual violation.
The petition pleaded with the court to instruct the authorities to provide appropriate compensation to Hindu victims of terrorism and sought an investigation into incidents of atrocity to identify the criminals.
Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury had initially brushed aside newspaper reports about the attacks saying the Awami League, after losing the election, was staging them and that the reports were politically motivated.
Yet, several newspapers continued to publish reports of atrocities against the minorities, particularly in southern Bangladesh, even as a few legal aid agencies undertook their own investigation in this regard.
Their reports pointed out that most victims refrained from lodging complaints with the police or local authorities due to fear of reprisal.
Many victims have reportedly left fled homes to neighbouring India.
A report by a secretarial committee, formed by the government to investigate the attacks, revealed some of the reports on atrocities against minorities to be true.
Except disciplinary action against a police superintendent in Bhola, and a few arrests of alleged attackers at some places, the government has so far taken no exclusive measures to ensure safety of the Hindus, reports say.
Indo-Asian News Service
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