British Labour MP Rupa Huq, who visited Bangladesh in January, is facing criticism for not meeting the persecuted Hindu minorities in the country who faced brutal violence in the aftermath of the violent revolution last year that ousted the Awami League government.
The local Hindu organisations in Bangladesh condemned Huq for not visiting the areas where Hindu minorities faced violence.
As per reports, the Bengali Hindu Adarsha Sangh (BHAS), UK, an organisation representing Bengali Hindus, collated letters from several organisations including the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, its associate the Bangladesh Youth Unity Council, Bangladesh United Sanatani Awakening Alliance and Sammilita Sanatan Parishad (an alliance of 40 Hindu groups in Bangladesh), criticising Huq for not visiting the people and places impacted by violence.
Huq visited Dhaka as a guest of honour of a trade delegation organised by the UK Bangladesh Catalysts of Commerce and Industry (UKBCCI).
The BHAS statement read, ” She admitted that she visited Bangladesh in 2024. She further stated that Hindus are in trouble but the troubles are for political reasons and purposefully ignored that minorities are being attacked due to religious extremism.”
The Unity Council statement said that the true narrative was not portrayed to Huq”…deeply concerned the visit did not include meeting with members of our community or visiting impacted people or sites. Instead, we learned that MP Rupa Huq met Muhammad Yunus and Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh. We are concerned that the true narrative was not portrayed to the MP.”
Huq criticised the APPG report that slammed Yunus regime
Following her Dhaka visit, Rupa Huq claimed that the report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for the Commonwealth was a ‘one-sided account’ of the interim government of Bangladesh.
Speaking in the House of Commons, she rejected the report as having ‘zero official relevance’.
A report entitled ‘The Ongoing Situation in Bangladesh’ was released by the APPG in November last year, three months after the ousting of the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh. The report criticised the Muhammad Yunus regime in Bangladesh for using ‘the law as a political weapon’ and empowering ‘hardline Islamists’.
“We have received evidence that murder charges are being slapped on former ministers, Awami League leaders, MPs, former judges, scholars, lawyers and journalists in such numbers to raise questions around their credibility”, the report read.
Huq said that the report peddled falsehoods. “This Autumn, a one-sided account of the Bangladeshi Yunus government surfaced in the name of the APPG for Commonwealth, pedalling falsehoods that was widely press-released, leading to confusion on UK government policy”, Huq posted on X.
The report was later withdrawn after widespread criticism.