TMC claims PM Modi not vocal against attacks on Bangladeshi Hindus, asserts party stands by sufferers

Kolkata, Dec 25 (PTI) The Trinamool Congress on Thursday claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not been vocal against attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, while asserting that the ruling party in West Bengal stands by the minority community in the neighbouring country.

West Bengal minister Shashi Panja claimed that the state BJP was trying to create a false narrative that the TMC was not speaking up against the atrocities on the minority Hindu community in Bangladesh.

"We condemn the killing of Dipu Chandra Das in Bangladesh in the strongest terms and stand by the brothers and sisters of the Hindu community in Bangladesh," she told reporters here.

Panja claimed that neither PM Modi, nor Union Home Minister Amit Shah has been vocal against the atrocities on the Hindu community in the neighbouring country.

The minister asked what the Ministry of External Affairs was doing with regard to the untoward incidents in the neighbouring country.

She alleged that a migrant labourer from West Bengal was killed in Odisha's Sambalpur district.

"Three youths from Suti block in Murshidabad district were attacked in Odisha on the allegation that they were Bangladeshis since they spoke in the Bengali language," Panja claimed.

She claimed that while one of them died, two others were seriously injured and were undergoing treatment at a local hospital in Odisha.

"We condemn the incident," the TMC minister said.

Alleging that Bengali-speaking migrant workers were facing atrocities in some states on the pretext that they were Bangladesh citizens for speaking in the Bengali language, Panja claimed that the BJP was mum on the matter.

On BJP's slogan 'Banchte chai, BJP tai' (want to live, so want BJP) used at Modi's recent rally at Ranaghat in Nadia district, the TMC leader asked whether the BJP wants to say that "if one wants to live, he must join the saffron party".

A 30-year-old migrant worker from West Bengal was allegedly killed in Odisha's Sambalpur district following an altercation over a bidi, police said on Thursday.

Odisha's IGP (Northern Range) Himansu Kumar Lal said six persons have been arrested in connection with the incident, and claimed that the murder had nothing to do with whether the "victim was a Bengali or Bangladeshi".