Amid reports of sustained attacks on Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina assured that her government was strongly in support of secularism and any attempts to disturb communal harmony will be immediately dealt with. Hasina was speaking to news agency ANI, ahead of a visit to India. "As long as we are in power, we always give importance to that and I always tell them [the minority] that you are our citizens. It is a very unwanted situation, but you know very well it is not only Bangladesh; even in India also sometimes minorities suffered," she said.
For the last year, since the Durga Puja festival, Hindu places of worship have been the target of a section of the Bangladeshi radicals. While Prime MinisterNarendra Modi expressed shock over the incidents, a member of his council of ministers, Nisith Pramanik, also wrote to Modi asking him to interfere in the matter of minority killings and destruction of their properties.
Hasina, at that time—while declaring the perpetrators of the recent attacks would be punished—had a message for India. While speaking to Bangladeshi Hindus a few months back, Hasina hinted India needed to be careful about incidents that would affect minorities in Bangladesh. Hasina appeared to be alluding to incidents of alleged repression of Muslims in India.
