Updates
- Reason behind attack on Bangladeshi Hindus : Rich Hindu ? So extort (November 10, 2013)
- Bangladesh Hindus attacked in Pabna; Jihadis use false Facebook post for rampage (November 3, 2013)
Reason behind attack on Bangladeshi Hindus : Rich Hindu ? So extort
Kartik Shuklapaksha 8, Kaliyug Varsha 5115
November 10, 2013
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Idols lay in ruins after a mob attacked Hindu temples and homes in Bonogram of Pabna on Saturday. The pack also stormed houses and vandalized them.
Extortionists, mostly belonging to the BNP and Jamaat, had planned to frame Hindu schoolboy Rajib Saha in Pabna for maligning Islam after his businessman father refused to pay them.
Rajib’s father Babul Saha, a leading trader in Bonogram bazaar, has two grocery shops with warehouses. He had been paying the youths regularly until June when they demanded Tk 2 lakh.
On Saturday morning, the youths went to his house looking for Rajib but found only his mother. They then went to Babul’s shop.
“Around 9:00am, Manik, Khokon and a few others came to my shop. One of them showed me something on his cellphone and said my son had maligned the Prophet. They asked me to bring my son or face dire consequences,” Babul told The Daily Star yesterday.
Babul, who is now under Ataikula police custody for safety, said he did not understand what his son had actually done.
According to locals, Khokon is a supporter of BNP and Manik belongs to Jamaat. Selim Khan, leader of Ataikula union BNP and defeated chairman candidate of union parishad election in 2011, was backing the extortionists.
Sources also said a few Awami League men had links with the youths.
The group chose Saturday as it was the weekly market day at Bonogram in Santhia upazila. It was also the occasion of Kali Puja.
Around 10:00am, some unidentified people started distributing photocopies of what they said was a “Facebook page”, claiming Rajib had defamed Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) in a post.
Jamaat-Shibir supporters began agitating around 11:00am. An announcement from the loudspeaker of the bazaar mosque did the rest. Hundreds of people came out clamouring for Rajib’s “execution”.
The youths were waiting for this. They and their men attacked Sahapara and Ghoshpara simultaneously, vandalising and looting around 100 houses from around 12:30pm to 3:00pm.
Locals alleged when a mob started to wreck the houses in the two Hindu villages, law enforcers were busy trying to confront agitating mobs blockading the Dhaka-Pabna highway.
Anil Kumar Sarker of Sahapara said a gang of 10 to 12 youths, armed with sticks, stormed his house around 12:30pm. They left hurriedly after vandalism.
“As soon as they left, I phoned Pabna Superintendent of Police Sirajuddin Ahmed and told him what was happening,” he said. The SP told him, “Police have been mobilised to tackle the situation.”
Anil then rang Deputy Commissioner Ashraf Uddin.
“The DC asked me if I have contacted the SP and when I said yes, he assured me that the SP would take care of the problem.”
Around 1:30pm, over 50 unruly people attacked Anil’s house again.“At that time I took refuge in the attic with my family and watched through a crack the men ravaging my already-damaged house. Then they set ablaze the idols inside the family temple,” he added.
“It was the day of our Kali Puja and the village was in a festive mood. Suddenly all hell broke loose leaving us shaken to the core.”
There was no trace of police until 2:30pm when a team of four cops arrived leisurely at Sahapara. “The policemen went around the village and left in about 10 minutes, since then none of the law enforcers have come to see us,” said Anil.
Sukumar Biswas of Ghoshpara said ten to twelve marauding groups, mostly youths, created panic by screaming as they rampaged through the village. “They stole gold ornaments and cash and destroyed our refrigerator, TV, computer, beds, tables, utensils and what not.”
A trail of destruction can be seen throughout the villages.The areas have maintained communal harmony since the independence despite being dominated by Jamaat-e-Islami, a party historically known for practising communal politics.
Eighty-year-old Bishnu Priya Saha said she was born at Sahapara and lived all her life there but never imagined she would see this day. “Here we, the Hindus and Muslims, are living like brothers and sisters for generations.”
Meanwhile, local administration organised a solidarity meeting on the bazaar mosque premises to quell tension and distributed cash, rice and corrugated tin sheets to the victims.
Asked why police failed to protect the Hindu houses, DC Ashraf Uddin claimed forces reached the scene when mob blockaded the road and tried to quell the situation.
OC Rezaul Karim of Ataikula Police Station said they were not informed of the attacks and looting immediately. “My limited force was busy controlling the mob on the highway.”
Police arrested Rezaul Karim of Gaurigram after filing a case in the evening against twenty named and more than a hundred unnamed people.
Contacted, BNP leader Selim said his political rivals were bringing false allegation against him.
Source : The Daily Star
Bangladesh Hindus attacked in Pabna; Jihadis use false Facebook post for rampage
Ashwin Amawasya, Kaliyug Varsha 5115
Jihadis also vandalised the idol in a temple
Pabna (Bangladesh) : For Bonogram bazaar in Santhia upazila, about 40 kilometres from Pabna sadar, the day started with the usual hustle and bustle.
But things started to change around 10:00am as a group of people began distributing photocopies of what they said was a “Facebook page”. They claimed one Rajib Saha had maligned Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) in the page.
“None was given the chance to ask whether or not it was a faked Facebook posting,” said an eyewitness.
Rajib, son of Babul Saha, a shop owner in the bazaar, is a class-X student of Bonogram Miapur High School.
Soon, hundreds of people stormed Babul Saha’s house in Bonogram. Unable to find the boy, the mob got hold of Babul and took him to the bazaar. There, he was warned that he and his son would be tried for “defaming the prophet”.
Despite protesting repeatedly that his son was innocent, Babul was mercilessly hit and kicked upon. At one stage, some locals intervened to save him and confined him to a shop.
In the meanwhile, another gang, more aggressive and violent, set fire to Babul’s house. Later, more gangs joined in to attack the predominantly Hindu village and vandalised about 26 homesteads.
On information, over 150 Rab and police personnel arrived at the bazaar. As they brought Babul out of the shop, the mob started throwing brick chips and other objects at them.
It took the law enforcers over an hour to rescue Babul and take him into their custody at Ataikula Police Station.
Jihadis tore apart the corrugated iron sheet walls of a Hindu house at Bonogram in Santhia of Pabna yesterday.
Talking to The Daily Star at the police station, Babul claimed the men who attacked his house belong to local units of BNP and Jamaat.
Asked about his son, he said Rajib was on the run to save life.
“He was preparing for SSC examination. He can’t do anything like what the people here are alleging,” he said, adding the boy is a meritorious student.
Meanwhile, people from different villages blockaded the Pabna-Dhaka highway for over five hours till 5:00pm.
As police tried to remove the barricade, the violent crowds attacked them with brick chips and sticks. The cops had to charge batons and fire several teargas shells.
All the top police and district administration officials were on the spot trying to defuse the crisis.
The way the Hindu houses in Bonogram were attacked yesterday bore an eerie similarity with the communal violence against the Buddhist community in Ramu on September 29 last year. A Buddhist youth, Uttam Barua, was framed with a fake Facebook page carrying anti-Islamic contents to incite the communal violence.
Yesterday’s incident also followed the trend of recent Jamaat- Shibir-BNP attacks on the Hindu minorities across the country.
Locals of Bonogram said some known faces of Jamaat, Shibir and BNP led the attacks throughout the day.
Rajib’s classmate Rocky said, “We are sure the allegation against Rajib is cooked up by a vested quarter.”
The Daily Star has found that the Facebook page whose photocopies were used to incite the attacks on the Bonogram Hindu community has no links with Rajib.
The name of this page, written in Bangla, denigrates the prophet and therefore it is unprintable in the newspaper.
Opened on September 14, the page got 420 “likes” as of yesterday evening.
It does contain hateful posts, majority of which was issued by the administrator. Some people gave negative reactions to these posts, asking others to refrain from liking this page.
In fact, there was no single comment supporting the posts.
Interestingly, the page itself gave 30 “likes” on other pages that include “Ami Gorbito, Ami Musalman”, “Sammilito Islami Mancha”, Hadith of the Day and several other Islamic pages.
Again, it likes Atheist Bangladesh Fans and Dhormockery, Gonojagoron Mancha and Imran H Sarkar and at the same time Amar Desh acting editor Mahmudur Rahman.
It also likes a page called Moulavibazar High School.
Additional District Magistrate Munshi Muniruzzaman said so far they did not find any substance in the claims made against the schoolboy.
He said steps would be taken against the culprits under information technology act after probe.
“We know who attacked and vandalised our houses.” Paritosh Kumar, a resident of Bonogram Sahapara. But he would not mention any name.
Around 250 Hindu families live in Bonogram village, he said, adding that some 25 to 30 houses were completely ravaged. “Many other houses were also attacked.”
Bishnu Saha, 80, said she had never imagined anybody would destroy her house this way.
Chandan Kumar Chakrabarti, president of Hindu Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, said, “Conspirators are out to create a situation so that the Hindus can be attacked.”
He said a party involved in communal politics might have been behind the Bonogram violence.
Source : The Daily Star
