Joy slams US embassy for picking Priya Saha

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ICT Affairs Adviser and son Sajeeb Wazed Joy has slammed the US Embassy in Dhaka for picking Priya Biswas Saha, who blamed in front of US President Donald Trump that 37 million Hindus, Buddhists and Christians had disappeared from Bangladesh.

“US Embassy is the one that had an ulterior motive here. They picked Priya Saha because they knew she would make this outrageous statement,” Joy said in his official facebook page on Sunday.

Joy also raised question about the role of the US Embassy after Saha’s ‘ridiculous’ claim. “She was a member of a delegation selected by the US Embassy in Dhaka. After much criticism the US Embassy finally issued a statement today [Sunday]. The Embassy stated they do not restrict participants. Which is fine, but why would they not refute an obviously false and outrageous statement made by one of their selected participants to their own Head of State?”

Terming Saha’s claim as baseless and laughable Joy added: “She [Saha] claimed that 3 Crore 70 lakh [37 million] minorities, or almost 4 Crore, have disappeared! That is more than ten times the number of our martyrs in our Liberation War, or almost as many people as were killed in World War 2. Yet this happened without anyone even knowing about it? Did 37 million people just vanish without a trace?”

Joy also determined such claim as equal to tempting for military intervention. “The only logical outcome of making such a claim to the US President is to build demand for a military intervention in the region on humanitarian grounds.”

“This ties in with another US Congressman's recent statement that Bangladesh should take over Rakhine state,” Joy added.

Terming the US stand as ‘decidedly anti-Awami League’, Joy said: “They have always hosted Jamaat and war criminals at all their events. With their support of Priya Saha's statement they now appear to be plotting a direct takeover of our country.”

Fortunately for us, President Trump and his administration have a very different policy of non-intervention in foreign affairs. They are also not so stupid to believe such a ridiculous claim, Joy said.

Priya Saha, a Bangladeshi national, participated in the Second Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom held at the US Department of State in Washington, DC from July 16-18.

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen also attended the meeting.

Delegates from 106 countries, including about 40 foreign ministers, took part in the meeting at the invitation of Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state.

A video clip, that later went viral on social media, showed Priya, one of the organizing secretaries of Bangladesh Hindu-Bouddha-Christian Oikya Parishad, pleading to US President Donald Trump to save 18 million people of minority groups in Bangladesh from persecution.

She alleged that 37 million Hindus, Buddhists and Christians had disappeared from the country, persecuted at the hands of fundamentalist Muslims groups, who enjoyed political support.

Earlier on Saturday, a press release issued by the Foreign Ministry termed Priya's allegations as "blatant lies" and said there was an ulterior motive behind Priya's "absolutely false and concocted stories", and they were targeted to malign Bangladesh.

It said that Bangladesh is a beacon of religious freedom and communal harmony, where people of all faiths have been living in peace for ages.

Kamruzzaman