‘Does Not Reflect the Facts’: Dhaka Rejects India's Criticism of ‘Hostility Against Minorities’ |
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New Delhi: India’s criticism of the “unremitting hostility against minorities in Bangladesh” does “not reflect the facts”, and some quarters in India are misrepresenting “isolated” incidents as part of a systematic persecution of Hindus in order to spread “anti-Bangladesh propaganda”, Dhaka charged on Sunday (December 28).
Even as the rejoinder further sharpens a point of contention between the two sides that has returned to the fore after the lynching of Hindu garment worker Dipu Das in Bangladesh, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police announced on Sunday that two key suspects in the killing of Bangladeshi student leader Osman Hadi had fled to India. Earlier, speculation of their flight across the border had inflamed anti-India sentiment in the country.
Bangladesh’s foreign affairs ministry noted India’s criticism issued on Friday but said they “do not reflect the facts”. “The government of Bangladesh categorically rejects any inaccurate, exaggerated or motivated narratives that misrepresent Bangladesh’s longstanding tradition of communal harmony,” it said in a statement.
“With much regret, we note that there are systematic attempts to portray the isolated incidents of criminal acts as systemic persecution of the Hindus” that are used to “incite common Indians against Bangladesh, its diplomatic missions and other establishments,” Dhaka alleged.
Noting also Indian external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal’s terming of a second Hindu man’s killing in........