‘Bangladesh should focus on protecting its minorities’: MEA on Dhaka’s Bengal violence statement

Bangladesh should focus on protecting the rights of its own minorities instead of “indulging in virtue signalling”, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday while rejecting statements made by Dhaka about the recent violence in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district amid protests against the Waqf Amendment Act.

This came a day after Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, said that Dhaka rejected any attempts to “implicate” the country in the violence in West Bengal.

Communal violence had broken out in parts of West Bengal, including Murshidabad, over the past week amid protests against the Waqf Amendment Act. At least three persons were killed and several others injured.

A waqf is an endowment under Islamic law dedicated to a religious, educational or charitable cause. Each state has a waqf board led by a legal entity that is vested with the power to acquire, hold and transfer property.

The recent changes to the law curb the authority of waqf boards and allow greater government control over them

On Tuesday, an ANI quoted an unidentified official from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs as claiming that an initial probe into the violence in Murshidabad indicated the involvement of alleged “Bangladeshi miscreants”.

Alam said on Thursday that Bangladesh “strongly refutes” attempts to implicate the country in the communal violence in...

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