Durga Puja celebrations conclude in Bangladesh amidst communal unrest created by Jihadi elements; another devotee found dead. Hindus fear fresh spate of attacks.
VISHWABHARATH | Dhaka | Oct 16, 2021:: The Durga Puja celebrations have concluded in Bangladesh even as another Hindu devotee was found dead on Saturday amidst days of communal unrest and violence unleashed by unidentified Jihadi elements who vandalised temples over alleged blasphemy, leading to the deployment of paramilitary forces in more than half of administrative districts.
Authorities overnight imposed a nationwide security vigil while officials said that initial investigations have thrown up crucial evidence against the perpetrators of violence against the minority Hindu community’s Durga Puja.
The paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) has expanded the vigil from 22 to 34 out of 64 administrative districts.
The elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) said it expects to arrest some of the key perpetrators of the sporadic violence which took place in the past three days. Voicing optimism over the investigation, home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told reporters that “we expect developments of the investigations in the next one or two days.”
The police, meanwhile, said that they have recovered the body of a Hindu devotee named Jatan Kumar Saha from a pond near a temple in southeastern Begumganj sub-district of Noakhali.
According to a community leader, the deceased was a victim of attacks on devotees on Friday. Report came in that Manik Shah was also killed by fanatic Muslim Mob in Chandpur district when the perpetrators attacked the Durga Puja pandals there.
One ISKCON devotee was also killed in Noakhali when the Muslim miscreants attacked ISKCON temple there again.
Four people were killed and scores of others injured during clashes between trouble makers and the police at Hajiganj sub-district in central Chandpur on Wednesday and Thursday, prompting the government to call out paramilitary forces to maintain law and order across the country.
With the latest killing, the death toll during the Durga Puja celebrations across the country has reached seven. On Thursday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina promised to bring to justice the culprits behind the violence, saying anyone involved in the attacks on Hindu temples and Durga Puja venues in Comilla will not be spared.
“The incidents in Comilla are being thoroughly investigated. Nobody will be spared. It doesn’t matter which religion they belong to. They will be hunted down and punished,” she said while exchanging greetings with the Hindu community members during an event at Dhakeshwari National Temple in Dhaka on the occasion of Durga Puja.
The violence had erupted after an alleged blasphemy incident at a Durga Puja pavilion in Cumilla, bordering Chandpur and about 100 kms from Dhaka, after which a probe was launched.
Local news site Bdnews24.com, as well as other major Bangladesh news outlets, reported that police had detained a Muslim man named Fayez Uddin, the person who initially posted the video on social media, and are being questioned for cross-checking. Some Jihadi elements placed a Quran on the feet of a Hanuman idol in Nanua Dighirpar Puja pandal to create a communal situation for attacking Hindus in a loop hole of blasphemy.
Sporadic clashes continued on Friday between police and religious hardliners while extreme right-wing Islamic Shashontantra Andolon on Saturday took out a big procession in downtown Dhaka’s Purana Paltan area protesting what they called as “demeaning of the “Holy Quran”. The armed police equipped with water cannons and other riot gear kept a sharp vigil from a close proximity.
The Durga Puja celebrations concluded without the traditional Bijoya Dashami procession due to the Covid-19 situation. Besides, the idols were immersed on Friday at around 4pm instead of 12pm out of respect for the Jumma prayers of the majority Muslim community, the Dhaka Tribune newspaper reported.
As sporadic attacks and vandalism reported on Friday as well, authorities issued prohibitory orders in the Noakhali district, banning public gatherings in Chaumuhani municipality from dawn to dusk on Saturday, it said.
The mob attacked, vandalised and looted minority households, businesses, and several temples in Chaumuhani during their march, the report said quoting the police. The government and law enforcement agencies described the incidents as “planned” with the aim of destabilising the country.
In Sylhet, locals and the police on Friday foiled attempted vandalism at two pavilions in the city’s Hawlader Para area. The attackers hurled bricks at the pavilions as well as adjacent houses, the report said.
More than 150 people, brandishing sharp-edged weapons, took out a march and tried to attack the Kalibari pavilion. However, as the devotees protested, the mob marched towards the Hawladar Para area and broke the gate of another pavilion, the report said.
According to the police, Facebook and YouTube were largely used to instigate communal tensions while reports said that the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) identified more than a hundred identities which were used to spread instigative comments.
Mobile phone operators said that under the BTRC directives, they stopped the 3G and 4G internet connectivity for 12 hours on Friday which the authorities said were done due to “unavoidable reasons”.
“The violence appeared to be part of a plot against interfaith harmony and the perpetrators were involved in identical incidents in the past as well,” said Colonel KM Azad of RAB that draws men from the Army and other armed forces including the police.
“We are preparing to take stringent legal actions and arrest some of them very soon,” he said.
Hindus are still in fear in Bangladesh as the Jamati and Touheedi people are planning new attacks on minority Hindus by hook or by crook.
Two Hindus were also killed and some 150 others were injured on Wednesday, community leader Gobinda Chandra Pramanik told AFP, with at least 80 makeshift temples (puja pandals) attacked.
“Hundreds of thousands of people are in fear,” Pramanik said, adding two more attacks took place on Thursday.
According to other social media reports, more than 150 Durga Puja Pandals and Temples and Hindu Shrines were attacked during this Durga Puja in Islamic Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh Hindu Unity Council tweeted today on Saturday evening, “The attack has not stopped yet. Attacks on Hindus are still going on.The government has tried but failed to stop the attack and protect the Hindus. The international media and international human rights organizations are playing a silent role”.
The perpetrators of communal violence in Bangladesh on Saturday vandalised six idols of the Daniapara Maha Shoshan Kali Mandir at Rashunia union in Sirajdikhan upazila of Munshiganj.
As per The Daily Star, the vandalism was carried out between 3 am and 4 am, confirmed Md rasheedul Islam, Assistant Superintendent of Police (Shirahdikhan Circle).
“The temple had no security and only the idols were vandalised,” he said. “The main entrance lock was found broken and the tin shed was also cut and all the idols in the temple have been vandalised,” said Subrata Debnath Bhanu, General Secretary of the Daniapara Mahasmashan Kali Mandir Committee, reported The Daily Star.
Radicalized Muslim mob also attacked an ISKCON temple in Bangladesh’s Noakhali district on Friday and according to the community, one of its members named Nimai Krishna Das was killed brutally.
The Ram Thakur Samadhi Mandir at Chumuhani in Noakhali District was also vandalized by the Radical Islamist groups, who claim that they are the members of ‘Religion of Peace’.
Hindus, who make up some 10 per cent of Bangladesh’s 169 million population, have faced sporadic violence in recent years, often sparked by rumours spread on social media.
Hindus fear fresh spate of attacks in Islamic Bangladesh in Post Durgapuja violence.
__Inputs from PTI, ANI, AFP, BBC and Social Media.
