Hindu students stage demonstration blocking Shahbagh intersection in Dhaka on Tuesday, protesting at attacks on the minorities in Brahmanbaria and pressing for their six-point demand.
Protesters on Tuesday announced a long march towards Nasirnagar in Brahmanbaria on November 18 in protest at attacks on the Hindus.
The announcement came at an hours-long blockade at Shahbagh crossing in the capital.
Dhaka University student Manik Raxit, also the convener of the programme, said they would start the march at Teacher-Student Centre of the university at 8:00am under the banner of Minority Rights Movement.
They will distribute relief among the affected Hindus, he said, expressing his hope that different organisations would join the programme.
Earlier, students and activists of different organisations blocked the busy intersection around 11:00am, giving the authorities three days to remove fisheries and livestock minister Muhammed Sayedul Hoque for his abusive comments on the affected Hindus.
The protesters also demanded proper compensation for the affected Hindus and their temples, identifying the instigators, masterminds and perpetrators of the attacks, bringing them to justice, finding out six missing families who reportedly left the area in fear and their rehabilitation and setting up separate ministry and an independent commission to oversee affairs of religious and ethnic minorities.
They also urged the government to find out the Hindus who were forced to leave the country in the past 16 years, bring them back to the country and rehabilitate them in their ancestral lands.
Dhaka University vice-chancellor AAMS Arefin Siddique, its proctor AM Amjad Ali, Bangladesh Chhatra League central president Saifur Rahman Shohag and its general secretary Zakir Hossain later joined the protest programme and expressed solidarity.
Traffic came to a halt during the protest, causing sufferings to the people.
On October 30, an unruly mob went berserk and vandalised and robbed about 200 houses and business establishments and 22 temples of Hindus at Nasirnagar following a reported post on Facebook that contained a doctored photo of the Kaaba.
Source: New Age
