Attacks and online misinformation frighten Bangladeshi Hindus

DHAKA, Bangladesh — Young Bangladeshi professional Tanushree Shaha is outraged by recent mob violence against her family in the chaotic wake of premier Sheikh Hasina's ouster from power, fearful that her fellow Hindus could face more reprisals.

Those fears, however justified, are being turbocharged by a wave of false rumours of other, deadly attacks being spread online and amplified by the media in Hindu-majority neighbour India.

Hindus are the largest minority faith in mostly Muslim Bangladesh and are considered a steadfast support base for Hasina's party, the Awami League.

After Hasina's abrupt resignation and flight abroad on Monday brought an end to her 15 years of autocratic rule, numerous Hindu families came into the crosshairs of their neighbours.

"A group of people vandalised my uncle's shop," said Shaha, the 31-year-old manager of a handicrafts business in the capital Dhaka.

She told AFP the mob had stolen his cash till and emptied the shelves of his grocery store further north in the city of Mymensingh.

They then beat him and demanded more money to prevent future attacks.

Shaha was standing with more than 1,000 Hindus at a boisterous rally near Dhaka University, where the student protests that toppled Hasina began last month.

The group had gathered to demand the country's new interim government, led by Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, urgently protect members of their faith from harm.

But Shaha said the animosity towards Hindus ran deeper than the national upheaval of the past month.

"Whenever a government falls or a problem arises, we are victimised by opportunists," she said.

Hindus account for around eight percent of Bangladesh's 170 million people.

That is a sharp fall from 1947, when the haphazard partition of India and Pakistan on religious lines at the end of British colonial rule sparked widespread violence.

Many more fled in 1971 during Bangladesh's devastating liberation war against Pakistan.

Up to three million people died in the conflict and Hindus, seen as supporters of independence, were disproportionate victims.

Over the past week, religious rights groups said they documented more than 200 incidents of attacks on minority