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Asia Pacific|Sorting Fact From Fiction as Fear Engulfs Bangladesh’s Hindus
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/24/world/asia/bangladesh-hindus.html
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Reports of vandalism and mob violence are real, but wilder accusations emanating from India muddy the picture.
By Saif Hasnat and Mujib Mashal
Saif Hasnat reported from Chattogram and Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Mujib Mashal from New Delhi.
Dec. 24, 2024, 12:01 a.m. ET
The reports, often accompanied by grainy footage, are frequent: Hindu temples vandalized and set on fire in Bangladesh, minority Hindus targeted and killed.
Many of the attacks are real, with the mob rage serving as a warning of how Bangladesh could spiral into violence in the vacuum opened by the overthrow of its authoritarian leader last summer.
Others are forgeries, pushed by supporters of the ousted prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to discredit Bangladesh’s interim government. The fabrications have also been spread by broadcast and social media in India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an ally of Ms. Hasina and is sheltering her as she plots her return.
Caught between the authentic and the exaggerated, Bangladesh’s Hindus, who make up about 9 percent of a population that is overwhelmingly Muslim, are gripped with fear.
“Smiles are rare, and businesses are struggling,” said S.K. Nath Shymal, the president of the Bangladesh National Hindu Grand Alliance in the coastal city of Chattogram, the center of some of the worst recent tensions.
The New York Times visited the sites of many of the reported attacks in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, and in Chattogram, the country’s second-largest city.
