(CRUX. Nirmala Carvalho).
A rumor of a planned “Christian State” using parts of Bangladesh has been called “surprising” by the south Asian country’s archbishop. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina mentioned the alleged plot last week. “Like East Timor … they will carve out a Christian country taking parts of Bangladesh and Myanmar with a base in the Bay of Bengal,” she told politicians on May 23. Bangladesh has population of nearly 170 million people and borders India to the north, west, and east, and Myanmar to the southeast. However, it is over 90 percent Muslim, with a Christian population of less than one percent – just under 500,000 people.
“Hearing the above mentioned news, we the Christians of Bangladesh and their leaders, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh and United Forum of Churches got surprised and worried. In today’s globalized and secularized world any State be called ‘Christian State’ is absurd,” said a statement from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh signed by Archbishop Bejoy N. D’Cruze of Dhaka.
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