Fulfil promise of forming Minority Commission

Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christian Oikya Parishad yesterday demanded that the government form a “National Minority Commission” to ensure justice over incidents of violence against and persecution of the country’s minorities.

The Awami League government in its election manifesto vowed to form such a commission.

“‘National Minority Commission’ will be formed and special law will be enacted for effective protection of the rights of the minority,” says the AL manifesto.

The minority commission should operate like National Human Rights Commission, Rana Dasgupta, general secretary of the Oikya Parishad, said during a press conference at Jatiya Press Club.

“It cannot be under any ministry. It has to be an independent body working to address torture, harassment and persecution of people from minority groups,” Dasgupta said in response to a query.

He added that AL had promised to form the commission and formulate minority protection law, following their long demand.

He also demanded that the government form a separate ministry to deal with minority issues, similar to the ministry formed by the Indian government to ensure well-being of the minority population there.

Oikya Parishad arranged the press conference to inform media about “discrimination” in recent budget allocations for the religious affairs ministry.

Analysis of the ministry budgets for past few years depict a “sorry and unfortunate” picture of per capita allocation, Rana Dasgupta said.

Apart from projects, as per religious affairs ministry budget, per capita allocation for religious majority population was Tk 11 to Tk 12. On the other hand, per capita allocation for minority population was only Tk 3, he said.

Although there is budget allocation for maintenance of the central mosque, no such allocation is provided for maintenance of central places of worship belonging to other religions, the Parishad said in a statement read out at the press conference.

In 2016-17 fiscal, the then finance minister had announced Tk 200 crore special allocation for reconstruction and development of Hindu temples. The project related to this has to be implemented soon with sanctioning the allocated money, it said.

The Parishad’s presidential committee member Prof Neem Chandra Bhowmik also spoke at the press conference.