Bangladesh: India should raise issue of minorities globally, says Akhilesh

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday said no community should be a victim of violence in Bangladesh, and urged the Indian government to raise the issue at the international level.

Several Hindu temples, households and businesses have been vandalised, women assaulted, and at least two Hindu leaders affiliated with the Awami League party headed by Sheikh Hasina killed in the violence in Bangladesh after she fled the country, according to community leaders in Dhaka.

More than 230 people were killed in Bangladesh in incidents of violence that erupted across the country following the fall of the Hasina government last week, taking the death toll to 560 since anti-quota protests first started in mid-July.

In a post in Hindi on X, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said, "No community, whether it is the majority with a different viewpoint or the minority Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists or any other religion-sect-belief in Bangladesh, should become a victim of violence.

"The Indian government should raise this issue strongly at the international level as a matter of human rights protection. This is also a very sensitive issue of our defence and internal security," he said.

Earlier in the day, Yadav said on X that any country that uses the political situation of another country to serve its own designs weakens itself. "World history is a witness that in different countries, violent mass revolutions, military coups, anti-government movements have taken place against the government for various reasons, right or wrong, depending on the test of the time," Yadav posted in Hindi.

In such a situation, only that country has "risen again" which has not discriminated against anyone on any ground, he said.

In his first post on X, Yadav did not specifically name Bangladesh or India but, without elaborating, he mentioned the "failure" of foreign policy.

"One thing that needs to be specifically highlighted is that history also teaches that any power that uses the political situation of another country to fulfil its own political designs, weakens the country both internally and externally," he said.

He added that every country has to protect its citizens. It is also the humane duty of every civilised society to protect every resident and neighbour without any discrimination, Yadav said.

The SP chief said unilateral interference by any country in the internal matters of another country is not considered appropriate as per the global diplomatic standards. But at the same time, he advocated "courageous steps in collaboration with the international community.

"The government which remains a silent spectator in such a situation should believe that it is the failure of its foreign policy that the conditions in the countries adjacent to it in all directions are neither normal nor favourable for it. This means that from the geopolitical point of view, there has been a grave mistake in its foreign policy," Yadav said.