B'desh's Chief Adviser Yunus visits Dhakeshwari temple ahead of Durga Puja

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Bangladesh's Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus on Tuesday said no one should face discrimination based on religion, ideology or economic status as he visited the Dhakeswari National Temple to witness preparations for the upcoming Durga Puja.

 

He exchanged greetings with members of the minority Hindu community, toured the temple and inspected the preparatory work for the annual Hindu religious festival, which will start next week.

 

"We are all members of one family. The entire nation is one family. Within a family, there may be differences of opinion or variations in behaviour, but the family bond is an unbreakable entity...Our goal is to stand united as one unbreakable family as a nation," he told the devotees.

 

The chief adviser said that whatever faith or ideology one follows, whether rich or poor, every person is first and foremost a citizen and all rights of citizens are guaranteed in the constitution.

 

"We do not want religious festivals to be shielded by security forces. We want everyone to observe their religious rituals freely as citizens. We will have to ensure this right of all, he told the devotees.

 

His visit came a day after Puja Celebration Council leaders met him at his official residence. Yunus enquired about the preparedness of the Durga Puja, the Hindu community's biggest festival, which would be marked by a two-day national holiday.

 

Yunus told the devotees he intended to exchange greetings with followers of the Hindu faith ahead of the puja since he was scheduled to join the UN General Assembly, which coincided with the festival.

 

Bangladeshi Hindus last month celebrated the Janmashtami festival, marking the birth anniversary of Lord Krishna, amid tight security. Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman, accompanied by the navy and air chiefs, joined the main function.

 

Soon after assuming power in August last year, Yunus visited the Dhakeswari Temple, where he vowed to develop all Bangladeshis as one family. But, in recent months, minorities were excluded from meetings of his national unity commission.

 

You cannot form one family discarding 10 per cent of the (minority) population, a key-organiser of the festival, Kajal Debnath, told PTI at the time.

 

On Tuesday, Debnath said a festive mood prevailed as Yunus visited the temple, though three sporadic incidents were reported ahead of the puja. In one such incident on Sunday, unidentified miscreants vandalised statues at a temple in western Kushtia, taking advantage of inclement weather and power outage.

 

Two months ago, the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council said religious minorities were facing escalating violence and systemic exclusion. It cited reports of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and Bangladeshi rights groups.

 

The Council said the minority communities faced 2,442 incidents of communal violence in 330 days from August 4, 2024, when the political unrest reached its peak, toppling then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government.

 

It said the incidents included murders, rapes, vandalism of places of worship, forced evictions, and attacks on small communities.

 

India has been expressing concerns over attacks on minorities, especially Hindus, in the country.