Dubious probe will not help Begum Zia

It is unfortunate that Bangladesh's cabinet committee on law and order decided to endorse the inquiry report prepared by the secretary to prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia, saying that there was not much substance in Press reports of rape and torture of minority women, nor was there any truth that minority property was looted and destroyed on a large-scale by the ruling party supporters following the Oct. 1 Bangladesh parliamentary poll.

According to the inquiry, Press reports of several thousand persecuted minorities crossing over to India were "found baseless". Apprehension was not unfounded as the home minister and the BNP secretary general themselves had already called Press reports on atrocities on minorities as "highly exaggerated."

Both had dismissed the assaults as "some isolated" incidents organized by political rivals to malign the new government. A denial syndrome is forcing the government to repudiate what the whole world knows to be true.

The Bangladesh Press, called the official report a "hogwash". Even the Bangladesh Supreme Court has accepted the fact that Hindus were being persecuted and served a show cause notice on the government in this regard.

This has provoked Indian Hindu fundamentalists like the VHP and Bajrang Dal to make the ridiculous demand that Bangladesh grant a separate homeland for its minorities. Both the Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists in the sub-continent have always had a mutually beneficial and symbiotic relationship. What they have done on both sides of the border merely reaffirms that relationship.

-- The Statesman, Calcutta