dujarric@un.org, maestracci@un.org, kaneko@un.org, gillmann@un.org, palanivelu@un.org

Please help the people of the minority community of Bangladesh

Hello,

I am a citizen of the minority Hindu community of Bangladesh and I created a website http://bhabanipur.atspace.com as a volunteer for the Shaktipeeth Bhabanipur Temple Committee. Bhabanipur of the Bogra District of Bangladesh is a sacred pilgrimate site for the followers of Hinduism. It is one of the 51 Shaktipeethas. Every year, thousands of devotees visit the temples of this Shaktipeeth to offer worship. 

The Wikipedia articles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhabanipur_Shaktipeeth and http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/ভবানীপুর_শক্তিপীঠ have links to this website of Bhabanipur Shaktipeeth. The website http://bhabanipur.atspace.com contains some very sensitive and valuable information. Recently the website of the Bhabanipur Temples has been hacked and some unwanted garbage is being injected to the website every time the website loads. The feelings of the Hindu community as well as that of mine is being severely hurt because of this.

There have been some repressive incidents surrounding the activists for the Bhabanipur Shaktipeeth temples. A worker for the Bhabanipur Temple Committee journalist Dipankar Chakraborty was murdered in 2004 for being active and vocal for the retrieval of about 500 acres of vested properties belonging to Ma Bhabani and for the protection of Bhabanipur Temple, but his murderers have not yet been punished even after the passing of about 10 years. Misusing the black law of vested property act promulgated during the Pakistani period, hundreds of acres of properties belonging to Ma Bhabani are being illegally occupied by miscreants. Violating a court order, the combined forces led by Bangladesh Army demolished the guest house of this Shaktipeeth in 2007. The people involved in these are very powerful and influential. The website contained these information with sources as well.

Whereas in 1971, the Hindu population (minority population) in Bangladesh was around 20-21%, now the recent census shows the minority population to be approximately 9.7%. A large number of Hindu people have been forced to (and are being forced to) leave the country as they could not/can not bear the repression/oppression of the majority. In the name of amendments, new provisions are being to the vested property act to harrass the Hindus of Bangladesh even more. Recently five Bangladeshi bloggers have been killed for practising freedom of expression and three of these bloggers were Hindu. I don't want to be one of them.

I fervently hope and pray that you would investigate into the matters and take some measures immediately to resolve the sensitive and important issues concerning Bhabanipur Shaktipeeth and help the people of the minority community as a whole so that they can live in their motherland with basic human rights and dignity and they are not forced to leave the country.

Thank you