On July 19, Rana DasGupta, a rights activists and minority leader, boarded a flight at 10:30 am from Chittagong airport and headed for Kolkata for medical grounds. Yet in a murder case filed with Jatarabari Police Station, Rana Das Gupta was indicted as an accused number 22 for committing murder at 2:00 pm on the same day.
In second murder case filed with Mirpur police station, the minority leader was framed as committing and/or inciting murder (accused number 326) on August 5 in Dhaka while he was in Chittagong on that day.
Holding a press conference, minorities, who earlier revealed communal attacks amid denial of state, called filing of these cases as effort to stifle voices that dare to defy coercive measures and expose the truth, in contrast to a heap of lies peddled by the regime and its defenders in past one month.
Importantly, the chief adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus himself called reports of countrywide attacks exaggerated and minorities have already rejected the remark, called it derogatory towards the community but a shot in the arm for communal attackers.
On the other hand, as secretary of country’s largest minority platform, Rana Das Gupta was involved in exposing widespread and persistent violations of human rights and the persecution of minority religious groups since August 4.
