Bangladesh transitional government head calls for unity, vows to ensure rights of all communities

By SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) – Bangladesh's transitional government head Muhammad Yunus on Tuesday vowed to ensure rights of all religious communities in the country as the end of the former Prime Minister Hasina era had witnessed violence in the country.

Calling for unity among all the religious communities, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus said that "Our democratic aspiration is to ensure our rights not as Muslims, not as Hindus, not as Buddhists, but as human beings.”

“The root of all the problems is that whatever institutional arrangements we have made, everything is rotten. This is why these noises are happening, he commented while paying a visit to Dhakeshwari National Temple in Dhaka and talked to Hindu religious community there.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, 84, took the oath of office Thursday to lead a 17-member transitional administration in Bangladesh.

Hasina fled to neighboring India after weeks of anti-government protests which resulted in at least 580 deaths since July 16, with 326 such killings in three days between Aug. 4 and 6.

Emphasizing on fixing the institutional arrangements, the Chief Adviser further said, 'We have to fix the institutional arrangements. That is justice. If justice is done, who will not get justice?”

We have to say, we have to establish our democratic rights. If that happens, our freedom of speech will be established, he underlined.

“We want to make Bangladesh where we are one family. This is the main thing. There is no question of making a distinction between families, he continued urging them not to be prey of those who want to play the minority card.

He demanded them to identify them as people of Bangladesh and seek this as a constitutional right.

Earlier on Monday, the Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman outside Dhaka said that so far about 30 incidents of violence or vandalism against minorities committed in 20 districts after Aug. 5 following the resignation of the former Hasina led government. Most of these were politically connected, he clarified.

According to the daily Prothom Alo, such attacks happened in at least 12 districts following the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government on Aug. 5.

The newspaper in a report said that some misinformation and fake videos are being spread about the attacks on the Hindu community in Bangladesh. In some cases, the fake videos are also circulating in the Indian media.

The transitional government's foreign affairs adviser Md Touhid Hossain on Monday in Dhaka talking to reporters also urged local media to counter the India media propaganda over attacks on religious minorities.