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WASHINGTON, DC (April 3, 2007) -- The Hindu American Foundation commended the swift and decisive action of the interim Bangladesh Government in carrying out sentences on the dreaded “Bangla Bhai”, and five others found guilty of murdering two judges and who were behind the attempt at Talibanizing the Bangladesh population.
Among the six men executed were “Bangla Bhai,” the chief of Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, and Sheikh Abdur Rahman, “supreme commander” of the Jamaat-ul Mujahideen.
In August 2005, the two militant groups had bombed 63 of the country’s 64 district headquarters almost simultaneously.
The six, convicted of the killing of two senior judges in 2005, Jagannath Pandey and Sohel Ahmed, in the southern town of Jhalakati, said they wanted an Islamic state and had targeted the courts because they are run by constitutional law.
“This action by the interim government is a strike against hardline Islam and the lumpenizing of Bangladesh society,” said Ramesh Rao, Member, Executive Council, HAF. “We had called the attention of the world through our Hindu Human Rights reports of 2004 and 2005 to the atrocities against minorities in Bangladesh, and the targeting of the largest minority – Hindus – by Islamic militants supported covertly by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party Government headed by Khaleda Zia. This punishment rendered to those who were behind the killings, murder, gang rapes, and kidnapping of thousands of innocent Hindus and other minorities is a welcome turn in Bangladesh politics.”
The Hindu American Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3), non-partisan organization, promoting the Hindu
and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism.
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