Hindus safe in Bangladesh, govt supports them: Minister Hasan Mahmud

Muhammad Hasan Mahmud, the information minister for Bangladesh, stated on Saturday that the country’s Hindu minorities are protected and that the government supports them.

He said the peaceful Durga Puja celebrations in Bangladesh is a testimony to their safety. “There are about two crore Hindus in Bangladesh. This year there were over 33,000 Durga Puja pandals. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ordered our party workers to keep a watch on puja pandals to ensure there is wrongdoing,” the I&B minister said at a press conference in Kolkata.

“Those who had tried to create problems during Durga Puja stand exposed. We have taken special measures to ensure no untoward incident takes place,” he said.

He said the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies are supporting these fanatics groups, adding their main politics is anti-India and anti-Hindu. ‘Our government has taken tough action against the miscreants,” he added.

Mahmud stated that the Indo-Bangla relationship is not solely reliant on the two countries’ Teesta water-sharing agreement while he was in the city to launch the Bangladesh Film Festival.

More than the relationship between the two governments, he continued, it is the people-to-people ties between the two nations that have aided in bolstering the diplomatic ties.

Since Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, disagrees with certain of its provisions, the Teesta River water agreement has not yet been finalised.