New Delhi: India’s criticism of the “unremitting hostility against minorities in Bangladesh” does “not reflect the facts”, and some quarters in India are misrepresenting “isolated” incidents as part of a systematic persecution of Hindus in order to spread “anti-Bangladesh propaganda”, Dhaka charged on Sunday (December 28).Even as the rejoinder further sharpens a point of contention between the two sides that has returned to the fore after the lynching of Hindu garment worker Dipu Das in Bangladesh, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police announced on Sunday that two key suspects in the killing of Bangladeshi student leader Osman Hadi had fled to India. Earlier, speculation of their flight across the border had inflamed anti-India sentiment in the country.Bangladesh’s foreign affairs ministry noted India’s criticism issued on Friday but said they “do not reflect the facts”. “The government of Bangladesh categorically rejects any inaccurate, exaggerated or motivated narratives that misrepresent Bangladesh’s longstanding tradition of communal harmony,” it said in a statement.“With much regret, we note that there are systematic attempts to portray the isolated incidents of criminal acts as systemic persecution of the Hindus” that are used to “incite common Indians against Bangladesh, its diplomatic missions and other establishments,” Dhaka alleged.Noting also Indian external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal’s terming of a second Hindu man’s killing in Bangladesh as a matter of the security of minorities in that country, Dhaka said his comments were “misleading”.Amrit Mondal’s “unfortunate death” by beating in Rajbari “happened when he was committing extortion with his Muslim accomplice, who was later arrested”, the foreign ministry claimed. “To portray this criminal act in the lens of minority treatment is not factual but misleading,” it added, calling on “different quarters in India” not to ‘undermine good-neighbourly relations and mutual trust’.Earlier, Jaiswal when asked about Das and Mondal’s murders during the weekly press briefing on Friday had said that the “unremitting hostility against minorities in Bangladesh, including Hindus, Christians and Buddhists at the hands of extremists is a matter of grave concern”.More than 2,900 incidents of violence against minorities have been recorded during the tenure of Muhammad Yunus’s interim government in Bangladesh, Jaiswal claimed citing “independent sources”, adding that “these incidents cannot be brushed aside as mere media exaggerations or dismissed as political violence”.That was a reference to Dhaka’s stance amid continuing criticism by the Indian government and media that they are based on ‘exaggerated’ figures of attacks against Bangladeshi minorities and that many such incidents were politically motivated.Das was lynched by a mob on December 18 amid violence that followed when Hadi succumbed to bullet injuries inflicted on him by a bike-borne assailant. Speculation that those involved had fled to India had inflamed anti-India sentiment on Bangladesh’s streets, prompting a protest by New Delhi.On Sunday, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police announced that two ‘primary’ suspects in the case had crossed over to Meghalaya via the Haluaghat border in Mymensingh and subsequently travelled to the Tura town in the hill state, the Daily Star reported. However, it did not say when they had managed to escape to India.“We are maintaining communication with Indian authorities through both formal and informal channels to ensure their arrest and extradition,” the newspaper quoted additional commissioner S.N. Nazrul Islam as saying. He also said that Indian authorities had arrested two people who had allegedly aided in the suspects’ travel in India as per ‘informal reports’.While there has been no official statement by Indian authorities, the Hindustan Times quoted an unnamed senior Meghalaya police official as saying they had not received any communication from their Bangladeshi counterparts. “None of the accused named in the report have been traced in Garo Hills, and no arrests have been made,” they told the paper.It also cited Border Security Force inspector general O.P. Upadhyay as saying there was “no evidence whatsoever of these individuals crossing the international border from the Haluaghat sector into Meghalaya … These claims are baseless and misleading.”Meanwhile, protests against Hadi’s killing continued in Dhaka on Sunday, with demonstrators from his Inquilab Moncho organisation blocking the busy Shahbagh square on Sunday and the Chowhatta intersection in Sylhet, the Daily Star reported.Home adviser Lieutenant General (retired) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury said on Sunday that investigators expected to file a chargesheet in Hadi’s killing within ten days.