Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-31739971-20180131070347/@comment-31739971-20180223142527

83.In August 1947, the erstwhile British India was partitioned into the Dominions of India and Pakistan on the basis of religion. Pakistan was to become the homeland for the Muslims of former British India with a majority Muslim population. The province of Bengal with a marginal Muslim majority was also partitioned with the Muslim majority East Bengal going to Pakistan and Hindu majority West Bengal going to India. The Sylhet district of Assam was added to East Bengal after the Sylhet Referendum where the majority voted for Pakistan. According to the 1941 census, East Bengal had 24.5% non-Muslim population, the majority of them being Bengali Hindus.[1] West Bengal has a 30.2% Muslim population, the rest were Hindus.

The area comprising East Bengal, especially the Dhaka and Chittagong Divisions had been witness to numerous instances of ethnic violence in the decades preceding the Partition. In the 1940s, the frequency and intensity of the riots increased as the movement for Pakistan gained momentum. In the last quarter of 1946, the Bengali Hindus of Noakhali and Tippera districts were subjected to a series of massacres, loot, arson, rape, abduction and forced conversion to Islam, which came to be known as the Noakhali riots.

Within a month after the Partition, the Janmashtami procession was attacked in Dhaka.[1] In 1948, the Dhamrai rathyatra and the Janmashtami procession was not allowed to be held.[1] In 1949, there were posters all over Dhaka against the Durga Puja.[1] The number of community pujas got drastically reduced. On the day of Vijayadashami hundreds of Hindu households were set on fire rendering around 750 Hindu families homeless.[1] Santosh Chatterjee, a Press Trust of India (PTI) correspondent was imprisoned on 25 November 1949 without any charges and released after a month.[2]