A group of protesters demonstrating near the Bangladesh Assistant High Commission broke through the police cordon and barged into the office premises in Agartala of India.
India has, meanwhile, expressed regrets over the breach of the Bangladesh mission premises in Tripura’s Agartala, reports The Week.
‘The incident earlier today of the breach of premises at the Bangladesh Assistant High Commission in Agartala is deeply regrettable,’ said a release issued by the external affairs ministry of India.
Tripura has been witnessing widespread protests over the November 25 arrest and detention of a Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das, a member reportedly belonging to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness order.
‘Diplomatic and consular properties should not be targeted under any circumstances. Government is taking action to step up security arrangements for the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi and their Deputy, Assistant High Commissions in the country,’ said the release.
Thousands of people on Monday took out a massive rally in Agartala, the Tripura capital, demanding the immediate release of Chinmoy and stoppage of attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, reports The Economic Times.
Protesters from the rally brought out under the banner of Hindu Sangharsh Samity, an affiliate of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, stormed into the Bangladesh Assistant High Commissioner’s office there having a workforce of only nine.
All the employees of the mission office were left with insecurity after the protesters damaged properties inside the office and desecrated Bangladesh’s national flag, according to foreign ministry officials in Dhaka.
In Bangladesh, there were clashes between the security forces and supporters of the Hindu monk, Chinmoy, after his arrest leading to the death of Saiful Islam, an assistant public prosecutor, on November 26, near the court premises in Chattogram.
Besides, the High Commission in New Delhi, Bangladesh maintains diplomatic representative offices in Agartala, Chennai, Mumbai, Guwahati and Kolkata.
The government, meanwhile, has upped the security of the Bangladesh diplomatic missions in India, the Indian media reported.
Hundreds of members of Sanatani Aikya Manch, a conglomeration of Hindu organisations in the Barak Valley of Assam, held a huge march called ‘Bangladesh Chalo’ in Sribhumi district on Sunday to protest at atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh, The Times of India reports.
However, a three-tier security arrangement foiled the march near the international border, preventing entry into Bangladesh.
Moreover, Indian Hindus take part in a protest outside the Bangladesh High Commission in Mumbai on December 2, 2024, amid the unrest in Bangladesh after the arrest of Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, Agence France-Presse reports.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, meanwhile on Monday, called for United Nations peacekeepers be deployed in Bangladesh and demanded prime minister Narendra Modi’s personal intervention to secure the safety of religious minorities in the violence-hit neighbouring nation, reports NDTV.
Addressing the West Bengal assembly, Banerjee said that she had spoken to the chief of the ISKCON’s Kolkata unit to extend her sympathies and support, and stressed, ‘If Indians are attacked in Bangladesh, we cannot tolerate it. We can bring back our people. The government of India can take this matter up with the United Nations so a peacekeeping force can be sent.’
Asked for comment, Bangladesh foreign affairs ministry adviser Md Touhid Hossain said that it was Mamata’s statement from her political perspective.
‘I would like to see this as Mamata-like remarks. I don’t understand why she has made such remarks,’ he said.
The professor Muhammad Yunus-led government has reaffirmed ‘in the strongest terms’ that every Bangladeshi, regardless of their religious identity, has the ‘right to establish, maintain or perform respective religious rituals and practices or express views without hindrance.’
source: NEW AGE
