Interim government blamed for downgrading minorities to second class citizens

Professor Rubayat Ferdaus, Department of Mass Communication and Journalism in Dhaka University has said that the interim government has downgraded the status of minorities across Bangladesh to second class citizens during last 18 months.

According to Rubayat Ferdaus, the rights and honour of Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, indigenous tribes and ethnic clans have been devastated in recent times. 

Rubayat Ferdaus made the above comments on Sunday at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) at a discussion program organized by Citizens for Human Rights which is a civil society platform. 

The speakers at the event talked about their inspection around Raozan and Mirsarai 
upazilas where minority people were recently subjected to violence and arson. 

It was informed at the program that 19 households belonging to Sanatan believers were torched in Raozan and Mirsarai by communal outfits. Such attacks on religious minorities ahead of the 13th parliamentary elections were strongly condemned during Sunday's discussion. 

Dignitaries at the program voluminously deplored the failure of law and order forces to protect the assets, lives and livelihoods of minorities in various places in Bangladesh since August 2024 till today. The discussants called upon the law enforcement agencies to crack down hard on mob gangsters in an unbiased way so that 
minorities' safety does not 
get further vitiated.