Even as more than 205 attacks against Hindus by Islamist mobs in Bangladesh since Sheikh Hasina’s ouster have been documented, several Western media outlets have resorted to downplaying the anti-Hindu violence and even blaming the Hindu victims for their plight. In this vein, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has continuously been downplaying the severity of attacks on Hindus, fanning insinuations that the anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh is ‘politically motivated’.
In an article published on 13th August, ABC first talked about how Hindus, their houses and temples have been attacked, threatened, compelled to leave and how Hindus are feeling betrayed. However, as one progresses further in the article [archive] titled: Hindus in Bangladesh feel betrayed by attacks after government’s ouster, the bias and the propaganda started spilling out.
While the ABC report itself says that thousands of Hindus in Bangladesh “attempted to flee to neighbouring India to escape the violence”, ABC finds it unimaginably difficult to ‘verify’ that the atrocities are being inflicted on Hindus due to their religious identity. Since Sheikh Hasina left Bangladesh after resigning on 5th August, not a day has passed when Hindu houses, businesses and temples have not been vandalised, not a day has passed when Hindus have not been attacked yet ABC fails to ‘verify’ that the attacks on Hindus are driven by religious hate harboured by Islamists against Hindus.
ABC and several other media outlets are shrewdly trying to establish an apocryphal narrative that Hindus in Bangladesh are being persecuted not for their religious identity but for the alleged support for Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League.
In one same article authored by Meghna Bali and Hannah Jose, ABC went from citing Bangladeshi Hindu students and Hindu rights leaders detailing the targeted attacks against the community to not being able to verify the ‘motive’ behind the attacks. ABC should question itself why do Muslim mobs attack temples and destroy idols of Hindu deities, are Hindu Gods Awami League supporters? Why would the Islamists check the private part of a deceased victim of mob violence and rejoiced saying “Hindu, Hindu” upon finding that the dead victim was not circumcised? IS ABC suggesting that in Bangladesh, political affiliation is decided by whether a man is circumcised or not? If not blinded by misplaced sympathies, it is easy to comprehend that the Hindus are indeed being attacked solely for their religious identity regardless of their support or opposition to the Awami League.
Undoubtedly, Hindu and Muslim leaders of Awami League have been targeted and lynched, however, there has not a single incident has been reported wherein the Islamists burnt or vandalised mosques to exact political revenge, if anyone gives the argument that some Sufi shrines have been vandalised, then that also proves the point that the attackers are Islamic fanatics who cannot tolerate even slight deviation from the orthodox Islam forget tolerating the Mushriks [Polytheists] or Kafirs [Infidels].
ABC accuses Indian media of ‘inflaming anxieties’ by reporting Islamist attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh
The ABC article then shifts its focus on the Indian media accusing them of exaggerating the Bangladesh crisis by reporting that Hindus were being attacked by Islamist mobs.
“Within hours of Ms Hasina’s resignation and flight from Bangladesh, news started to appear across Indian media outlets and social media that Hindu minorities were being attacked by “Islamist forces”, further inflaming anxieties,” the ABC article reads.
According to ABC, Indian media reporting the anti-Hindu violence unleashed by Islamists in Bangladesh was ‘inflaming anxieties’. Much like the left-liberal politicians and the media houses living in denial of the Islamist threat, ABC perhaps wants Indian media to do the same. Recently, OpIndia reported how Qatar-funded Islamist propaganda outlet Al Jazeera claimed that Indian media houses reporting the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh are ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘Alarmist’.
Much like Al Jazeera, ABC also quoted ‘political analysts’ to claim that Bangladesh is not losing its secular character. One Zahed Ur Rahman asserted that Bangladesh is not losing its secular nature attacks since, according to him, the attacks on Hindus are there but politically driven.
Amusingly, the state-owned ABC also peddled the Muslims protecting Hindu temples narrative, however, and yet they failed to ‘verify’ whether the attacks were religiously driven or not even as it was reported that Jamaat-e-Islami had prepared a list of Hindu houses and other properties since the fall of Sheikh Hasina. ABC and other media outlets downplaying crimes of Islamists against Hindus should answer from whom the temples are being protected— Islamists or Indian media?
Dipan Mitra, the secretary general of the World Hindu Federation (Bangladesh Chapter) had while recently speaking to OpIndia had outrightly rejected the claims that Muslims were protecting Hindu temples and said, “It is just a stunt. They take photos near Hindu temples, publish them [on social media] and leave. This is just an eyewash for global leaders and people worldwide that oh, see, even Muslims are protecting Hindu temples. But this is totally wrong.”
Hindu leaders including the spokesperson of ISKCON Meherpur temple which was vandalised and idols there were broken by Islamists, said that Hindus have perpetually been targeted and tortured since the 1980s. Despite this, leftist and Islamist sympathising ‘news’ publications like ABC, New York Times and Al Jazeera alongside their Indian allies want the world to believe that even though Hindu temples are being attacked Hindu women are being targeted the ongoing genocide of Hindus is not religiously but “politically driven”.
It is not a secret that the student groups-led anti-quota protests were hijacked by Islamist/Jihadist parties like Bangladeshi Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami. Notably, the state-owned ABC called Sheikh Hasina a ‘tyrant’ and celebrated her unceremonious ouster.
ABC’s obsession with whitewashing anti-Hindu extremists
It is pertinent to mention that ABC has a penchant for whitewashing the crimes of anti-Hindu elements. OpIndia reported last year how the Australian Broadcasting Corporation whitewashed pro-Khalistani activities in the country and made it look like the Hindus attacked Khalistani extremists there not the other way around. In June this year, ABC had published a hitjob on India and accused the Modi government of planning to assassinate Khalistanis residing in Australia. The propaganda piece authored by Avani Dias was overloaded with Indophobia and limerence for Khalistani fanatics.
