Author: Priya Saha

Attacks against minorities as well as secular bloggers have witnessed a perceptible rise in Bangladesh in recent years, as Islamist outfits such as Hefazat-e-Islam have become increasingly popular in the predominantly Muslim nation. In fact, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was faced with deadly protests during his visit to Dhaka in March.Mobs of Islamists allegedly targeted over 50 Hindu homes and vandalised at least four temples in Bangladesh’s Khulna district on Saturday. ​As per the Bengali-language newspaper Samakal, the incident was triggered after a cleric from the local mosque in the district’s Siali village objected to a Hindu religious procession…

On Saturday (August 7), miscreants destroyed four temples and vandalised several shops belonging to the Hindu community in Bangladesh. The incident took place in Shiali village in Rupsha Upazila in the Khulna district of Bangladesh. As per a report in Samakaal, the attack took place around 5:45 pm on Saturday during which miscreants ambushed the village with locally made weapons. During the violence, four temples were desecrated and a house was vandalised. Besides, the goons also destroyed 6 shops. On learning about the incident, a team of senior police officers including the Superintendent of Police (SP) reached the spot. Following…

Noted rights activist Sultana Kamal yesterday at a webinar said indigenous people are not only losing their homesteads, gardens, trees, forestlands and lakes, but their crematoriums are also being grabbed by the state or people patronised by the state. “And there is no solution to this grabbing from the state’s side, while those who are losing land are being evicted and forced to migrate elsewhere,” she said. For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel. The webinar titled “Inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in Sustainable Development and Realization of Rights: Responsibility of State and Citizens”, was jointly organised…

Many development activities are jeopardising the life and livelihood of ethnic minority people instead of benefiting the people, observed speaks at an online discussion on Saturday. The discussion was organised by internet news portal IPnews on the occasion of International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples 2021 to be observed on August 9. They said that the government was claiming that the country was in the ‘highway of development’ though the ethnic minority people were not experiencing any of that. They said that it was important to ensure the cultural and linguistic independence of ethnic minorities to engage them in…

The vandalism of a temple in eastern Punjab by a frenzied mob is highly unfortunate. Notwithstanding, as to what were the causes behind the uproar, such incidents of hate and religious profiling should be condemned. It is a blot on the very essence of our national fabric, and comes to undermine unity, compassion and tolerance. The solace is that the district administration and law-enforcement agencies have come to the rescue of the minority community, and the tragic incident has been censured by the PM and the CJP. The government and the apex court have also ordered restoration of the temple,…

According to Bangladeshi media and Pakistan High commission office to Bangladesh, like last year, Pakistan government has sent fresh Pakistani mangoes to the President, PM and other considered person’s of Bangladesh. The president of Pakistan has sent gift of fresh world famous Pakistani mangoes to the President, Prime Minister and other dignitaries of Bangladesh. Bangladesh has received it with warmest appreciation on August 02. 2021.Mango diplomacy of Pakistan is known to all of us. Pakistan’ s mango diplomacy surprised Communist China’s then chairman Mao Ze Dong and Chinese people in 1960’ s decade. Pakistan is a source of a huge…

The counter-terrorism and transnational crime unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police has showed banned Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh as the worst extremist outfit among the eight banned Islamist outfits claiming high causalities recorded over the past two decades. ‘Islamic State-inspired’ Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh faction carried out the highest number of attacks, according to the first-ever publication of the unit. The publication, shared with professionals working to address violent extremism, provides an overview of extremist attacks and recruitments by militant outfits since 1999. It says that Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh carried out 16 attacks and killed 145 people in 1999–2004. The Anti-Terrorism Unit’s intelligence chief additional…

Among the vacillations and opportunism of post-2008 Nepali politics, one of the constants has been Kamal Thapa with his call for a return of the monarchy and the restoration of the Hindu state. One may disagree with his politics, but one must admire his commitment to his cause, unlike several conservatives who have recently crawled out of the woodwork.At first glance, various strands of right-wing conservatism seem to co-exist today in the country. The first comprises the royalists like Thapa, in whose interpretation Nepal’s identity was derived from its Hindu monarchy. The second strand emanates from the Madhes plains, where…

Admitting that there has been a rise in hate crime against Asian-Americans, US President Joe Biden mourned the loss of Sikhs in a shooting by a white supremacist at a gurdwara of Wisconsin nine years ago.“On this day, in 2012, I was with another friend who’s half Sikh–he’s a Sikh. And we were dealing with 10 people shot in a hateful act of bigotry at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Seven people lost their lives that day. Today, we honour everyone impacted by the tragedy,” Biden told reporters at the White House.In an interaction with reporters during his…

A Myanmar militia force fighting the army in a central part of the country and residents have found at least 40 bodies in jungle areas in recent weeks, including some showing signs of torture, said a militia member and Myanmar’s U.N. envoy. Since the military overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, hundreds of people have been killed as the army violently quelled protests, and in clashes between soldiers and often hastily assembled, lightly armed local militias. For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel. The bodies were found in several different locations around Kani, a town in the Sagaing area, which has…

Bangladesh has always been one of the brightest examples of religious harmony and peace. “secularism” is not only a word that’s inscribed in Bangladesh’s constitution as one of the four fundamental principles of the state, but it’s also an automatism that shapes the social subsistence of Bangladeshi people.  But there was a rise in ripples in the non-perpetual tranquility in the name of terrorism and religious extremism. Although Islamist parties were constantly present in politics, Islamist factions first emerged in 1989 in Bangladesh and they run riot in the following years with the sole desire of establishing Caliphate in the…

Reading Time: < 1 minute  An idol of Vishnu weighing about 12 kg has been recovered from the Daudkandi upazila of Cumilla in Bangladesh. The black stone idol is about 23 inches high and 9.5 inches wide. Ataur Rahman, former regional director of Chattogram divisional archaeology department, said, “The statue is very valuable. It is possibly more than 1,000 years old. It should be immediately handed over to the Mainamati Museum for proper preservation.” Nazrul Islam, officer-in-charge of Daudkandi police station, told IANS, “We recovered the statue from the house of Abu Yusuf, a teacher in Boro Goali village in…