The Talibanization of Bangladesh: 'Genocidal Campaign against Minority Hindu Population.' Where is Mohammad Yunus?

Since the collapse of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government in August, the world has witnessed the full Islamization and Talibanization of Bangladesh. On November 5, the Hindu community came under attack from the police and military in Chittagong, the second-largest city in Bangladesh. Pictured: Members of Bangladesh's religious minorities protest the attacks, looting, vandalism and arson targeting temples across the country, in Dhaka, on September 27, 2024. (Photo by Mehedi Hasan/Middle East Images via AFP)

Islamist violence against minorities, including Hindus and Christians, has been ongoing since the violent removal of Bangladesh's secular Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5. Non-Muslims in the country are facing heightened risk amid the country's ongoing political and social crises.

On November 5, the Hindu community came under attack from the police and military in Chittagong, the second-largest city in Bangladesh. Videos posted by news website OpIndia show policemen and soldiers hunting down Hindus. Videos also show law enforcement authorities deliberately destroying closed-circuit cameras.

Many accounts on Twitter have also reported on the attacks: Amy Mek posted:

"[T]he world remains silent, passively witnessing a Hindu genocide in Bangladesh.

"Trump has already issued a warning to Bangladesh, urging them to halt these attacks on Hindus—a reminder that strong leadership is needed to address this crisis."

India Today posted:

"Hindus targeted in #Bangladesh again. This time in Chittagong. Is administration led by Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus unable or unwilling to help Hindus?"

Christians in Bangladesh are also being violently targeted. On September 5, for instance:

"Two evangelists in Bangladesh were beaten and detained by police... they were detained overnight without any treatment for their wounds... Many such believers are living in fear and panic. Meanwhile, church activities have been disrupted, and evangelists and pastors, especially those in rural areas, are fearful of attack. Please continue to keep your Bangladeshi family in your prayers."

Since the collapse of Hasina's secular Awami League party (AL) government in August, the world has witnessed the full Islamization and Talibanization of Bangladesh. If this process is completed, Bangladesh will be the second country – after Afghanistan -- to be taken over by Islamists in less than four years.

In October, Islamic revolutionary authorities in Bangladesh officially banned the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of the Awami League, declaring it a "terrorist organization".

According to regional news, Bangladesh's interim government led by Mohammed Yunus may also ban the Awami League from participating in political activities, including elections. Most of the party's leaders have fled.

Banning the Awami League, which was the main ruling party in the country for 21 years, after playing a massive role in achieving Bangladeshi independence, would be the equivalent of banning the only viable opposition group to the Islamists. It is the only party that has representation including not only Muslims, but also minority Hindus and Christians.

The ongoing jihad against non-Muslim minorities in Bangladesh was described by Sreemoy Talukdar, an editor at the website Firstpost:

"What started as a students'-led 'liberation movement' in Bangladesh leading to Sheikh Hasina's ouster is in danger of losing its legitimacy before the eyes of the world as it appears to have been co-opted, appropriated and hijacked by Islamist fundamentalists who have utilised the ensuing chaos, turbulence, lawlessness and the lack of any governing authority to launch a genocidal campaign against the minority Hindu population.

"Ever since the Bangladesh prime minister was forced to flee, resulting in a power vacuum in the eighth-most populous country in the world, images, videos and accounts are streaming in of atrocities against the Hindu minority in Bangladesh, whose numbers have dangerously depleted over decades almost to the point of extinction...

"The Bangladesh Army, now the custodian of all power till a promised interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus takes oath, has been mysteriously missing in action. Law enforcement personnel are absconding, having come under retributive attack from vengeful 'protestors', and in the ensuing free-for-all, Hindu properties and places of worship and women have become prized meat for religious fanatics involved in wanton violence.

"Harrowing videos have surfaced on social media that give an indication of the unfathomable cruelty and genocidal nature of the violence being perpetrated on defenseless minorities. One viral video clip shows radical Islamist lunatics inspecting the genitals of a murdered man, possibly lynched to death, and expressing satisfaction that he was a Hindu."

In many instances, members of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, are behind these attacks and rights violations.

Jamaat-e-Islami was banned by the Awami League government on August 1. Four days later, PM Hasina was forced to resign and her government collapsed. On August 28, Bangladesh's interim government lifted the ban. Jamaat-e-Islami members are known for collaborating with Pakistan during Pakistan's 1971 genocide and Bangladesh's War of Liberation.

In 1971, the government of West Pakistan launched a devastating ten-month campaign of mass murder, rape and other atrocities against the Bengali and Hindu residents of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

The Holocaust Museum of Houston relates:

"After independence from Britain in 1947, India was partitioned into the separate states of India and Pakistan in one of the largest and most violent mass movements of people in history.....

"The genocide began with massacres in the capital, Dhaka, on March 25, 1971, and soon spread to the rest of Bangladesh. The army had premade lists of targets, including members of the Bengali nationalists, intellectuals, and Hindus. The army believed that mass violence would terrorize what they saw as a racially inferior population into subservience, especially if Bengali elites were killed, but instead faced popular resistance that was put down with violence. Young men were targeted as potential sources of resistance and women and girls were raped as a way to destroy Bengali families."

By the time India intervened and forced a Pakistani surrender in December 1971, about three million people had been killed, around 200,000 women raped and millions more became refugees in India or Bangladesh.

Under Hasina's rule, some of the Jamaat-e-Islami's top leaders were sentenced to death or imprisoned for the atrocities they committed against civilians during the genocide. Jamaat-e-Islami has now gained strength under Bangladesh's Islamist interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus. Islamist radicals are the ones who brought Yunus to power.

On August 31, Yunus and Mamunul Haque, leader of the Hefazat-e-Islam ("Protector of Islam") organization met, despite the group's history of maintaining a radical Islamist stance. Hefazat-e-Islam was formed in 2010 to protest the Awami League government's women's development policy, which proposed to confer equal rights of inheritance on women. Hefazat-e-Islam was opposed to this policy: it contradicts Islamic Sharia law.

Yunus' interim government also freed Jashimuddin Rahmani, the chief of the Ansarullah Bangla Team, an al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist organization. Rahmani was convicted in December 2015 and handed a five-year jail term for abetting the murder of blogger Rajib Haider in 2013. He was also charged in terror cases.

The influence of the Hizb-ut Tahrir (HuT) -- another in Islamist organization that aspires to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate and globally implement Sharia law -- also keeps increasing.

Although Hizb-ut Tahrir was banned in Bangladesh in 2009, "its supporters are taking out marches, including in Dhaka, and posters propagating their ideology have mushroomed." The New Indian Express reported:

"On August 9, supporters of the HuT organized a rally at Baitul Mukarram North Gate in Dhaka and demanded the establishment of the Khalifah [caliphate] in Bangladesh based on Sharia law which they claim would ensure 'true justice and welfare' of all the citizens in Bangladesh."

Hizb-ut Tahrir also called on Bangladesh's interim government to revoke the 2009 ban. HuT leader Imtiaz Selim said the government should replicate the model that it applied to have the ban lifted on Jamaat-e-Islami. His demand comes amid the release of several terrorist leaders and radicals in the country.

As Raja Muneeb, an editor of Firstpost, noted:

"The interim government led by Mohammad Yunus has largely failed to stop the violence against the minorities and has made matters worse by lifting bans on radical Islamist groups and releasing terror suspects from jail that rule the roost on the streets of Bangladesh."

If a power such as the US sits back, does nothing and watches as the Talibanization of Bangladesh unfold -- as the Biden administration has done -- it is likely that the chaos will not remain within the borders of Bangladesh. India will not allow another Islamist state on its borders to wipe out Hindus, Christians and secular Muslims in Bangladesh. India might justifiably decide that its security is threatened enough.

Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute. She is also a senior researcher at the African Jewish Alliance.