Economist Prof Abul Barkat has rebuked Priya Saha for ‘distorting’ his research findings after the embattled minority rights activist said she referred to his study when explaining her controversial remarks to President Donald Trump about the persecution of minorities in Bangladesh.
In a statement issued on Monday, the president of Bangladesh Economic Association said: “As a social scientist, I want to be assured that Priya Saha will immediately retract the statements that she quoted using my name which are confounding and repugnant to principle.”
The statement comes after Priya, who is currently in the US, sought to explain herself in a video posted on YouTube after her comments at the White House drew widespread condemnation and flak.
Saha, a director of rights organisation SHAREE which works with the Dalit community, is also an organising secretary of the Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council. She attended a meeting on religious freedom at the White House in Washington on Jul 17.
After identifying herself as a Bangladeshi national, Saha was seen urging Trump to help the religious minorities living in Bangladesh. She claimed that 37 million people of minority groups have “disappeared” from Bangladesh.
A video of her interaction with Trump caused an uproar on social media. The government condemned her statement for damaging the image of the country with the ‘fabricated and fictional allegations’. The home minister said she would be questioned on her statement upon her return to the country.
Later, a video of an interview she gave to a journalist, defending her statement, was posted on the YouTube channel of SHAREE.
The Hindus now account for 9.7 percent of the total population, compared to 29.7 percent during the 1947 Partition, she said in the video.
That means many people have gradually left Bangladesh, according to Saha.
“All I meant is that the number of minority people has gradually declined. I didn’t mean to comment on the government. I just mentioned what happened in my village in Pirojpur,” she explained.
“The current population is 180 million. But if the minority population were to grow at the same rate, then the current population would match the population that I have said has been lost.”
Based on the government’s statistics, Prof Abul Barkat conducted a study in 2011 which found that 632 Hindus leave the country each day, she said.
She further claimed to have been directly involved in the research in 2011.
But Barkat said refuted her claims and said, Saha never worked as his co-researcher, research associate or assistant. Her statements did not reflect the findings of the research either, he added.
“By my calculation, some 10.13 million Hindus went missing over the last five decades (1964 to 2013). Therefore, I never said ’37 million Hindu-Buddhist-Christian people disappeared’. Moreover, she didn’t mention the 50-year timeframe – 1964 to 2013 – of my research anywhere.”
