From our Bangladesh correspondent, Dhaka: Oppression on and discrimination against the religious minorities in Bangladesh are on unabatedly, despite, Dhaka’s well calculated propaganda of its so called commitment towards communal amity and religious liberty and tolerance, according to a recent U.S. report.

The United States of America’s state department in its latest report dealing with religious liberty across the world states that people belonging to the religious minorities in Bangladesh have been the target of social injustice and oppression, religious belief being their only ‘fault’. The situation becomes more and more deplorable since the religious minorities in the country are devoid of any help from the political leaders.

The report further holds that the religious minorities are even losing their lives and properties due to the ground situation in the country. Religious minorities, especially Hindus, were robbed of their landed and other properties through the instrumentation of the black Vested Property Act before the liberation of Bangladesh by the then government. Even after the revocation of that black law, the minorities remained unable to recover their property. According to a resolution adopted by the Parliament of Bangladesh in April 2007, all the acquisitioned properties of the religious minorities had to be returned to their original owners with a condition. The condition was that the legal heir must had to be bonafide citizen of Bangladesh.

A prfessor of Dhaka University is of the opinion that in spite of the Vested Property Act being repealed about two lac Hindu families have lost land over forty thousand acres since 2001.

The US report, moreover, brings to light the fact of the government in Bangladesh being over conscious about the edge of religion over politics since Islam is the sole driving force in determining official policy.

It is said that in general, the Bangladeshi citizens are not barred from practising religious rituals. The Ahmediya community has been protected by the government despite repeated demand of declaring it a non-Muslim sect. But, government officials and police kill time to take necessary action whenever persecution is meted out to the religious minorities.

Many quarters in Bangladesh are of the view that besides religious reason political and monitory considerations, too, play a bigger role when it comes to torture and persecution on the religious minorities in Bangladesh.