New Yorkers woke up today to a strong appeal to the global community from the Hindu community in the US as American groups organized a huge airline banner calling for urgent global action to stop the ongoing genocide of Hindus in Bangladesh.
According to reports by the press, the large banner flew over the Hudson River and circled the Statue of Liberty, a global symbol of human dignity, freedom, and equality.
According to a U.S. Congress Resolution HR 1430 passed in 2022, the genocide recorded 2.8 million deaths and saw at least 200,000 predominantly Hindu women raped, leaving the region permanently scathed.
Bangladesh's Hindu population which was at 20 percent in 1971, stands at a meager 8.9 percent in recent times.
News reports coming out of Bangladesh document targeted violence, systematic impoverishment, lynchings, kidnappings of minor girls, and forced job resignations affecting up to 200,000 Hindus, along with property seizures, posing a serious existential threat to the 13 to 15 million Hindus living in the country.
Since August 5, 2024, about 250 verified attacks and more than 1,000 reported incidents.
Sitangshu Guha, a member of the Bangladesh Hindu Community and one of the coordinators of the program, aptly defined the danger: "Hindus in Bangladesh are on the brink of extinction. Hopefully, this will raise an alertness among the civilized world and prompt the UN to take action to save the victims of militant Islamic forces in Bangladesh.". If Bangladesh becomes Hindu-free, then it will become Afghanistan 2.0. The militants will spread to neighboring India and other parts of the world including the West. This is everybody's problem.
Another organizer and member of the Interfaith Human Rights Coalition, Pankaj Mehta, stated that it was now high time for the UN Human Rights Council to put down politics and formally recognize the 1971 Bangladesh genocide as the greatest genocide after World War II. Three US-based organizations-The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Genocide Watch, and the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience-have already issued declarations that the atrocities committed by Pakistani occupation forces and their Islamist allies in 1971 constitute genocide specifically targeting the Hindu minority. The United Nations must now likewise follow suit and take steps to prevent another looming genocide.
Surjit Chowdhary, a founder member of Sree Gita Sangha of New Jersey, USA, appealed to the Bangladesh government to put an end to all the violence unleashed against the Hindu community and sort out political differences through democratic methods.
The rate of Islamist fundamentalism in Bangladesh poses grave threats for India as it can easily infect West Bengal and farther, with existential ties connecting radical forces on both sides.
This is sending ripples of fear also among the mainstream Americans, just like the anxieties created during the Afghanistan crisis.
The humanitarian watchdogs are really very vigilant and keeping strict watch on the deteriorating conditions in Bangladesh; they have every reason to believe that it could be a full-scale genocide if violence threatens to go haywire.
Americans are requested to boycott the Bangladeshi garments, which happens to be 85 percent of the country's export earning till and unless and until the violence stops and the perpetrators are brought to book.
The top buyers' CEOs of Bangladeshi garments, including Walmart, H&M, Gap Inc., Target, PVH Corp and VF Corporation have been called upon to immediately cease ordering from Bangladesh, given that economic aid is becoming viewed as an enabling force behind terrorism against Hindus and other minorities.
Even the American Jewish community condemned the atrocities and brought the crisis into correlation with the horror of Hamas terrorists attacking Israel.
As the world rallied in protest against extremist violence in Israel, today many are crying out for intervention now to put a stop to more murders in Bangladesh.
The event will stream live on stopHinduGenocide.org where all atrocities will be documented methodically with historical context and the ominous future facing Bangladesh's Hindus unless the global community acts.
Read also| Russia Claims Capture of Strategic Town in Donetsk Region
