Govt to give protection to Preo Bala, family: FM
Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen said on Wednesday that the government would provide protection to Preo Bala Biswas if she sought security following her controversial statement claiming that some 37 million Hindus, Buddhists and Christians remained missing in Bangladesh.
A senior US official ‘called me over phone and wanted to know if the [Bangladesh] government would sue and arrest her’ for making the statement on alleged disappearance of a huge number of Hindu community members, Momen told journalists at the foreign office.
‘We told them I don’t believe the government will arrest her. Rather, the government will provide her protection if she wants,’ the minister said.
When asked about the petitions submitted in courts in different districts, he said the government was not a party to those petitions.
Thirty seven million Hindus, Buddhist and Christian ‘disappeared’ in Bangladesh over the years, Preo Bala, executive director of the NGO Self-Help Association for Rural People through Education and Entrepreneurship, or SHAREE, said in a meeting with US president Donald Trump as a member of a group representing different countries on July 17 during a global forum on religious freedom organised by the US government.
Preo Bala participated in the forum on dual capacity — as a member of the Bangladesh delegation as well as on an invitation from the Department of State of the US government, diplomatic sources said.
Preo Bala, also known as Priya Saha, claimed later in a video statement that she got the data on disappearance of the members of the minority communities from a study conducted by the Bangladesh Economic Association president professor Abul Barkat.
Barkat, however, said in a signed statement issued on Monday that Priya Saha presented his research findings in a distorted way.
‘Some one crore 13 lakh Hindus remained missing in 50 years since 1964 to 2013, according to my assessment,’ Barkat said, adding that he had never mentioned in his book published in 2016 that three crore 70 lakh Hindus, Buddhist and Christian had gone missing.
News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net
