‘Called out of factory, shot 7 times’: Hindu leader gunned down in Bangladesh; had paid 3L taka ‘protection tax’ | Nagpur News

NAGPUR: Thirty-seven-year-old Rana Pratap Bairagi, who took seven bullets from radical Islamists before he lay sprawled in blood near his ice factory in Bangladesh’s Jessore district, would regularly cough up protection money.“Rana paid 3 lakh taka as protection money in the last few months, but still he’s dead. We are sitting ducks in Bangladesh, don’t know if we will live to see tomorrow,” a relative told TOI on phone. Bairagi was a leader of minorities and would actively take up their issues, said another close relative.

Among the two persons killed in Bangladesh on Monday, Bairagi ran an ice making factory, doubled up as a journalist, but what perhaps led to his death was his affiliation to the exiled PM Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League in Jessore. He leaves behind wife, eight-year-old son, and parents who worked as govt schoolteachers. Hours after Bairagi’s murder, another Hindu man, Mani Chakraborty was lynched.Politically active, Bairagi was the go-to man for minorities in Arua village in Keshabpur upazila of Jessore district, which has over 100 Hindu homes. Things dramatically changed after then PM Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in August last year. Like Rana Pratap, several villagers regularly paid money for safety.“He was called near his factory, where assailants fired seven rounds at him, killing him on the spot. They may accuse him of writing controversial articles in the paper, but they wanted to eliminate a Hindu leader. If someone like Bairagi is killed no other from the community would dare to raise their head,” said the relative.Gangs of fundamentalists, purportedly affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami, have been visiting Hindu homes, demanding money for protection or threatening them with death, said villagers of Arua. “They are outsiders, but turn up every month to extort. None dares to come out openly,” said the kin.TOI spoke to several villagers on phone. And they all admitted to paying ‘protection tax’ but were unsure whether the extortionists belonged to any political party. Another acquaintance of Bairagi, living a few kms away, said Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) workers have assured protection to minorities without the ‘tax’.“Despite BNP’s assurance, I don’t feel safe here and plan to apply for a visa to India. I hope the Indian govt considers it. By the time the application is processed, I can sell my land in Jessore and move to my kin in West Bengal,” said the person in his 50s.