Sectarian violence in Bangladesh: Who will bell the cat?

SALEEM SAMAD

Rana Dasgupta, general secretary of the Hindu Christian Buddhist Unity Council lamented that for 50 years of Bangladesh‘s independence “when there is change of political scenarios, when an anti-government movement is held, and in other circumstances, the minority community is targeted. The aim is to rid Bangladesh of the minorities.”

He feels this is a political target too, when an independent newspaper Prothom Alo sought his reaction to the 1068 houses and business establishments attacked during the Monsoon Revolution, he said that it is not just a matter of numbers. If one house is attacked, people from 10 other houses are in panic.

Prothom Alo in a damning investigation report on a private survey during the period from 5 to 20 August, regarding the number of Hindu homes vandalised, business establishments looted and temples desecrated all over Bangladesh.

The recent attacks on Hindu communities allegedly by radicalised Sunni Muslims who have political colours have irked the secularist, human rights and civil society groups and seriously embarrassed the Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus’s nascent Interim Government.

The vandalism, arson and plundering occurred hours after the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina was ousted on 5 August. There was the absence of policing as the law enforcement officers fled their posts in fear of retaliation from the angry protesters.

Well, the social media and the Indian mainstream media ran rife with misinformation, and fake news around the heart-rendering occurrences. The social media warriors and Indian media continued trumping up death figures and fake footage was shown of bloody persecution, which was trashed by several fact-checkers in both India and Bangladesh.

Well, Prothom Alo is one of the few daily newspapers which have systematically reported on the carnage of religious minorities, since Sheikh Hasina swung into power in 2009.

During the 15 years of Sheikh Hasina’s regime, every week, every month, each year, hundreds of incidents occurred which tarnished the social fabric of secularism and religious tolerance.

Previously the minority community came under a major attack during the rule of the Awami League government in 2021 during Durga Puja. The Council had protested and said that from 13 October to 1 November, 117 temples and puja pavilions in 27 districts had been damaged. Also, 301 business establishments and houses had been damaged and looted. Nine persons were killed.

Unfortunately, for not a single occurrence of sectarian violence, Hasina’s government did not punish the perpetrators. This has raised doubts about the colour of the perpetrators, who are hooligans from the Awami League, according to human rights, civil society and some newspaper reports. Therefore the perpetrators enjoyed impunity for a crime they have committed.

Why that is so, the Awami League regime has always blamed the attacks, persecution, vandalism and desecration of places of worship of not only Hindus but also Christians, Buddhists, Adivasis (ethnic communities) and even the Muslim sect Ahmadiyya were not spared.

Well, Ahmadiyya Muslims are deemed heretics by the Sunni Muslims and even liberal Muslims. Past regimes have remained silent to officially declare Ahmadiyya are not Muslims. In Pakistan, the Muslim sect is banned by the Islamic Republic nation.

On 9 August, a large number of Hindu community held banners and chanted slogans condemning the violence targeting the country’s minorities during a protest at Shahbag Square, Dhaka,

Prothom Alo correspondents meticulously conducted investigations from 5 to 20 August and found evidence of at least 1,068 houses and business establishments of the minority community being damaged and other temples being desecrated.

Most of the attacks took place in the country’s south-western region of Khulna. At least 295 homes and business establishments of the minority community were destroyed in the division. Also, 219 houses and business establishments were destroyed in Rangpur, 183 in Mymensingh, 155 in Rajshahi, 79 in Dhaka, 68 in Barishal, 45 in Chattogram and 25 in Sylhet.

Most attacks in Khulna region, followed by Jashore, Satkhira and Magura. The second largest attack was in the Rangpur division. The minorities in Thakurgaon, Lalmonirhat and Panchagarh districts of this division came under the most attack.

The third highest amount of damage was done to houses, business establishments and houses of worship in the Mymensingh division. Most of these attacks were carried out in Netrakona and Mymensingh districts.

In the Rajshahi division, there were attacks on houses and business establishments, this being the fourth-highest number of attacks. The most attacks in this division were in Rajshahi, Bogura and Naogaon districts.

The attacks in Dhaka, Chattogram, Barishal and Sylhet were comparatively less. The attacks took place in Narsingdi, Faridpur, Rajbari and Tangail of Dhaka division; Barguna and Pirojpur of Barishal division; Chattogram, Noakhali and Khagrachhari of Chattogram division; and Maulvibazar and Sylhet of Sylhet division.

Several local community leaders stated that even in the areas where there were no attacks, the people were in fear.

After the fall of the government, there has been news of two members of the minority community being killed in these attacks. One of the deceased persons was Mrinal Kanti Chatterjee. He was a retired schoolteacher. He was beaten and hacked to death on the night of 5 August in the village Chhoto Paikpara of Rakhalgachhi Union in Bagerhat Sadar. His wife and daughter were injured in the attack. The other person was Swapan Kumar Biswas of Paikgachha, Khulna. On 8 August, while on his way home, he was beaten up, tortured and killed.

According to the preliminary compilation of the Bangladesh Hindu Christian Buddhist Unity Council report on 20 August, over 200 attacks took place in over 50 districts. The attacks, vandalism and loot are much higher than understood.

However, among the 1,068 houses and business establishments attacked, at least half of those occurrences, an estimated 506 had an affiliation with the Awami League.

The findings of investigations by Prothom Alo‘s correspondents, that violence in the Hindu community occurred in 49 districts, out of 64 districts.

Prothom Alo reports that the Christian and Ahmadiyya Muslim communities and ethnic minorities were also attacked. According to the Bangladesh Christian Association, there were attacks on the Church of Bangladesh in Naogaon, the Evangelica Holiness Church in Dinajpur, an office of the Christian Cooperative Credit Union in Madanpur of Narayanganj, and homes of three Christians in Gournadi of Barishal, one in Khulna city, one on Haluaghat of Mymensingh, and one in Parbatipur. A statue of Mother Mary was vandalised in the Nijpara Mission in Thakurgaon.

Archbishop Bijoy Nicephorus D’Cruze of the Roman Catholic Church in Dhaka, told Prothom Alo, “That is unfortunate. We want to live in this country peacefully regardless of caste and creed. However, the attackers are not identified and they are not punished.” He said that those involved in the attacks must be identified. The perpetrators must be tried, which will stop sectarian violence.

According to the Kapaeeng Foundation, a human rights organisation for the ethnic minority community, there have been at least 10 attacks on the ethnic minority communities in Dinajpur, Rajshahi, Naogaon, Chapainawabganj and Thakurgaon.

Kapaeeng Foundation also said that the statues of Sidhu Murmu and Kanhu Murmu, two historical characters of the Santal rebellion against the British, were damaged.

The Ahmadiyya community has said 137 houses and six Ahmadiyya mosques were damaged in attacks in Panchagarh, Rangpur, Rajshahi, Nilphamari, Madartek in Dhaka, Sherpur and Mymensingh.

Public relations office of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Congregation Ahmad Tabsir Chowdhury told Prothom Alo, “We are an apolitical community and are not partisan. The hooligans had targeted Ahmadiyyas, taking advantage of the fact that the law enforcement was not active.” He said that they had come under attack during the rules of previous regimes of BNP and Awami League too.”

From 6 August, the violence significantly subsided after initiatives were taken by BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami, as well as students and social organisations began to guard the houses, business establishments and places of worship of the minority community. Several political parties, rights groups and civil society issued statements condemning the attacks.

On 13 August, Dr Muhammad Yunus held a meeting with representatives of Hindu organisations including the Hindu Christian Buddhist Unity Council.

Dr Yunus visited the historic Dhakeswari Temple and said, “We want to build up a Bangladesh that is just one family. That is the basic premise. There will be no differences within this family, and the question of divisions will not arise. We are the people of Bangladesh, Bangladeshis.”

Dhaka University’s Emeritus Professor Serajul Islam Choudhury told Prothom Alo that given the chance, in Bangladesh the strong tend to persecute the weak and try to grab their property. But this time there has been a positive trend. Many have come forward to protect the minorities. This positive trend must be encouraged.

“If a new Bangladesh is to be built, equal rights must be ensured for all, where there will be no differentiation based on religious or ethnic identity,” he remarked.

First published in the Northeast News, Guwahati, India on 13 September 2024

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Too little, too late to protect Hindus in sectarian violence

Slain Dilip Das left behind his wife Rupa Das, daughter Priya Das and son Partha Das - Photo: Saleem Samad

SALEEM SAMAD

Law enforcement’s lack of response during the Cumilla riots lead to greater escalation

Dilip Das, 62, was a commercial washerman for the Sadar Hospital and other clinics in Cumilla. For nearly 30 years, he laundered hospital bed sheets and linens.

When pedestrians rushed Dilip to the emergency department of the hospital, he was not attended to. His family shifted him to the 250-bed government hospital, where again he was left unattended. For six hours, he did not get medical care in Cumilla hospitals. His condition deteriorated as his forehead wound was bleeding.

Dilip’s wife Rupa Das did not expect to hear the tragic news in her life. The sky had fallen on her head. She was not aware that rioters had gone berserk in the city.

At Dhaka Medical College Hospital, the surgeons and physicians struggled for eight days to treat the patient who had gone into a coma from a fatal brain haemorrhage. His daughter Priya Rani Das, 25, said the brain surgeons had twice operated upon him in Dhaka.

She also said that he was struck with full force with a metal bar by Islamic vigilantes, which badly fractured his forehead skull, and he sank into a coma. She dashed from her house at Thana Road, accompanied by Ruma Das, sister of Dilip.

The armed vigilantes had taken positions in the streets and the intersection became dangerous for Hindus to venture out. She and Ruma were desperate to reach the hospital.

The vigilantes, mostly teenagers with machetes, bamboo sticks, and metal bars, threatened them to cut them into pieces. They yelled at her -- how dare they desecrate the Holy Quran?

Ruma told the youths, “You can kill us, but we need to go to the hospital for the emergency treatment of my elder brother.” Rupa had no clue about what had happened at Nanua Dighirpar Puja mandap in the morning when all hell had been let loose in Cumilla.

On that ominous day, Dilip went to Rajeshwari temple in Manoharpur to clean the premises as a volunteer. He told his wife not to cook for him as he would have prasad (religious offering of food) at the temple. At noon, he was walking towards Darogabari Mazar, a tomb of a Sufi saint, to clean the premises. He was caught in the violence near the temple. The vigilantes caught him and, with a metal bar, fractured his skull.

The residents of the city had not experienced such rage in 50 years, since the genocidal campaign by marauding the Pakistan military in March 1971.

While Dilip was fighting for his life in the hospital at Dhaka, the neighbours offered milad and dua mehfil (prayers) in at least two mosques and several Muslim homes for his early recovery. The neighbours mourned his death.

He was adored by thousands for his volunteerism at temples, mosques, and the shrines of Sufi saints. He had respect for all religions, but had given his life to the brutalities of Islamic vigilantes with political clout.

When the mobs and mobsters roamed the towns in Cumilla and Chowmuhani, Noakhali for several hours, the police were squarely blamed for the slow response.

Scores of survivors, Durga Puja committee members, and priests of temples claimed to have called the civil administration, police stations, 999 emergency police helpline, and even ruling Awami League leaders, but unfortunately, nobody responded.

Members of the Human Rights Alliance Bangladesh, Research and Empowerment Organization (REO), and Nipironer Birudhey Shahbag, a sister organization of Gonojagaron Mancho, visited the place and met Achintya Das Tito, secretary of the Cumilla Mahanagar (city) Puja Committee. He was an eyewitness to the desecration of the Nanua Dighirpar Puja. He had frantically called the police chief, the police station, civil administration, and Awami League leaders for help to stop the mayhem.

Their conspicuous silence was questioned by the media, civil society, rights groups, and Hindu leaders.

Interestingly, at one end of the large pond, a stone’s throw away was the home of Cumilla City Mayor Monirul Haque Sakku and, on the other corner, lived ruling party MP AQM Bahauddin Bahar. None came forward for decisive action.

“The desired help never came. It came only then when everything was lost to sectarian violence,” he lamented.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 2 November 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

The cries of Hindus of Bangladesh

Racial riot incinerates ISKON temple in Chowmuhani, Noakhali - Photo Collected

Scores of amateur videos recorded on smartphones were uploaded on Facebook, where cries of panic-stricken Hindu women, girls and children were heard

SALEEM SAMAD

Cricket star and former captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza of the Bangladesh team posted a touching reaction on his Facebook account, rueing the mayhem and carnage carried out against the Hindu community in Bangladesh over the last few days.

The ruling Awami League lawmaker Mortaza posted a picture of the burning village in Rangpur, where hooligans torched homes of the Hindu community.

The Facebook post says: “Saw two defeats last night. One was the Bangladesh cricket team’s and that one hurt. The other one was a defeat for the whole of Bangladesh, which tore my heart to pieces.”

Bangladesh has once again plunged into racial riots during the annual Durga Puja festival since 13 October. The hooligans armed with metal bars, bamboo and batons vandalised, ransacked, desecrated temples and makeshift Durga Puja sites. They torched thousands of homes of the Hindu community and looted business establishments in half of the cities and district towns in the country.

“This isn’t the first time that minorities in Bangladesh have come under attack,” Amnesty International’s South Asia campaigner, Saad Hammadi. “Targeting religious sensitivities to stoke communal tension is one of the worst forms of human rights violation.”

Hindus of Bengal had witnessed the infamous 1946 Noakhali Riot and Kolkata Killings as prelude to the bloody partition. In 1964 a sectarian violence erupted in Bangladesh on the alleged theft of hair of Muslim’s most revered prophet Muhammad in Kashmir, India.

Of course, the genocidal campaign in 1971 by Pakistan military forces, the second such genocide after the Second World War after that of the Nazis in Germany, also hadtargeted the Hindus to exterminate them from East Bengal.

Bangladesh Hindu Unity Council @UnityCouncilBD tweeted: “We want the right to practice our religion. We want protection in our temples. We want [the] protection of Hindu women. We want the right to live in peace in our homeland Bangladesh.”

Rana Dasgupta, a lawyer and general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC) said “It is unfortunate that a majority of the grassroots leaders of the ruling Awami League were also seen with the rioters.”

The Unity Council lamented at a press meet in Chattagram port city said they have lost faith in the political leadership for their failure to protect the vandalism and discretion of Hindu temples and makeshift Durga Puja altar.

Well, the rioting occurred when the civil and police administration apparently did not swing into action, Dasgupta lamented. Scores of amateur videos recorded on smartphones were uploaded on Facebook, where cries of panic-stricken Hindu women, girls and children were heard.

Most eyewitnesses in social media claimed that the attire of the hooligans was in shirt and trousers, not wearing caps, sporting beard in kurta and pyjama, traditionally worn by Islamists or Madrassah students.

Months after the brutal birth of Bangladesh, the first Durga Puja festival in 1972 was attacked in capital Dhaka, Chittagong and elsewhere and police pointed fingers towards the defeated henchmen of Pakistan military forces.

Everybody believed the story. When intermittent incidents occurred almost every year, civil society, human rights groups and media paused briefly to review what went wrong with the vision of secularism and pluralism.

An estimated 3 million people were victims of racial cleansing and another 10 million people were forced to become ‘war refugees’ and took shelter in neighbouring states of India.

It was a nightmare for the Delhi government to manage the crisis. Plus hundreds of officers and soldiers revolted and joined the Mukti Bahini along with tens of thousands of barefoot guerrillas were recruited from among the students and farmers to resist the marauding Pakistan military.

The bloody war was fought and won to establish an independent Bangladesh based on secularism, pluralism and democracy.

In the fifth year of independence, the architect of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in a military putsch and thus the nation plunged into perpetual darkness.

Revival of Islamism surfaced and local henchmen indicted for crime against humanity and waging war against Bangladesh were released after the “Collaborators [of Pakistan] Act, 1972” was scraped by a military dictator General Ziaur Rahman, a liberation war hero.

Parties propagating religion was banned in the 1972 constitution. The military junta amended the law and allowed Islamist parties to function. Promptly the Jamaat-e-Islami, an active collaborator of the Pakistan military surfaced after long hibernation with new vigour and resurgence of political Islam.

In 2001 the Islamist party joined the electoral alliance with the rightist party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by Khaleda Zia.

Hours after the result of the unofficial elections were announced, the hooligans unleashed a countrywide reign of terror against Hindus, as well as opposition Awami League supporters. Thousands were maimed and police refused to register cases against the perpetrators.

In 1992, violence was unleashed against the Hindus by Islamists in protest against the demolition of the controversial Babri Masjid. The sectarian violence continued from December 1992 till March 1993. The 12th-century heritage Dhakeshwari temple was attacked during the racial riots.

For 20 years, the persecuted Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and Adivasis did not receive justice, not to speak of compensation.

Also, the Ahmadiyya sect of Muslims were not spared by Islamists. The ruling party remain silent and believes the Islamist version that the Ahmadiyya’s are heretic. On every Friday Jumma prayer, the Islamist march in front of the Ahmadiyya mosque chanting slogan to ban the heretics and shut down their mosque.

Nevertheless, the ripple effect has begun. And protests are being held in all educational campuses, cities major intersections and in front of the press clubs all over the country.

The 1971 liberation war veteran Sachin Karmakar, a retired Mukti Bahini commented that the successive governments in a bid to win the heart of the Islamists on their side have dug canals and invited crocodiles for the protection of their thrones. Now the hungry crocodiles are chasing us as their prey?

First published in the International Affairs Review, 19 October 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist and columnist based in Bangladesh, a media rights defender. Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com;Twitter: @saleemsamad

Majoritarian Muslims failed to protect Hindu minorities

Angry Mother (Maa) Durga

SALEEM SAMAD

Revered Fakir Lalon Shah’s 131 death anniversary was on October 16. His most popular song: “O how long are we to wait/For the birth of a society/Where castes and class and labels/Like Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian/Will be forgotten?/And none will be there to swindle the innocent/Pretending to be their saviour/Nor will there be bigots.”

“More than 80 special shrines set up for the Durga Puja festival were attacked, with about 150 Hindus injured and two killed,” writes the Guardian newspaper.

Many researchers dub this the worst racial riot, desecration of temples, and attacks on homes of Hindus and compare it to the post-poll violence that occurred when Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, in alliance with Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, swept into power on October 1, 2001. 

Thousands of Hindus took refuge in the neighbouring state of West Bengal, India.

If a nation is divided on the basis of religion, faith, and political ideology, it means that the country is following in the footsteps of Pakistan.

It’s a rule of the majority to dominate the society, politics and economy. Here the majority are Muslims and only about 12.73 million of the population are Hindus (8.5%) -- the rest are Buddhists, Christians, and ethnic communities.

The onus of the security and welfare of the minorities obviously rests upon the majority. The majority have a bigger slice of the state and politics. Thus, the state governed by the ruling party will have to shield the minorities and provide protection, security, and safety.

According to writer and researcher Mohiuddin Ahmad, nowhere in the world have racial strifes or sectarian violence occurred without state and politicians’ tacit indulgence, whether it be Bosnia, Gujarat, Arakan , Nasirnagar, or Delhi.

Interestingly, only hours later, the nomination of ruling party leaders allegedly responsible for instigating the strife in November 2016 has been stripped, and they cannot participate in the local government elections in Brahmanbaria.

At the first reaction, why were the two perpetrators given nominations in the first place? 

Shouldn’t those leaders responsible for selecting nominees for the local government elections seek a public apology? They must also admit their follies in compromising politics and crime.

In the last 20 years, the state has failed to bring the perpetrators and hooligans to face justice. They have enjoyed impunity, and this has caused a ripple of insecurity among the Hindus and other minorities.

Today, the civil society and citizens’ group misses the journalist and secularist Syed Abul Moksud, who was vocal on the issue of secularism, pluralism, tolerance, and hate crime. Moksud died last February, and his footprints will be found in almost all the cities, districts, towns, and villages, wherever there was strife. 

He urged the authorities to identify the criminals and prepare a list of people involved in hate crime, especially those who preached hate speech against Hindus and other minorities.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 19 October 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Islamists Challenges Secularism in Bangladesh

People have no jurisdiction to judge others on their religious views

Is this tolerance? Photo Credit: SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

SALEEM SAMAD
A series of low-intensity violence on the issue of blasphemy was recently raised by radicalized Muslims against Hindus, Buddhists, and others, which is nothing new in Bangladesh.

If the violent behavior by the “lords of hate” is analyzed, it could be determined that these occurrences have an identical pattern of violence, as if those are woven in one string of hate against humanity.

In the fairly recent incident in Bhola in the coastal district, the acts of violence were instigated by rumormongers citing fake Facebook exchanges, which were deemed blasphemous only by the Islamic zealots.

Despite the distances from one occurrence to another, the typical pattern of violence has been observed in Barisal, Brahmanbaria, Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar, Gaibandha, Gopalganj, Ramu, Rangpur, Santhia (Pabna), Satkhira, Sunamganj -- and the list appears to keep growing.

All the incidents falsely accused person(s) insulting Islam, the Qur’an, or Prophet Muhammad -- soon after, Hindu and Buddhist households were looted, vandalized, and set ablaze, while temples were desecrated.

Hate speech by zealots is widely available on YouTube and Facebook, with tens of thousands of views on social media. The videos do not hesitate to despise the defenders of human rights and advocates of secularism, especially the mainstream media.

The hate speech by the clergies indoctrinate madrasa students, and millions of disciples of Islamic evangelists paradoxically have a similar message of hate against secular Muslims and Muslim sects.

Of late, their demands to the authorities are coincidentally the same, as if the storyboard is prepared under one roof, by one person, and written with one pen.

Closely analyzing their statements, the Islamists are no more a religious group -- they have a clear political agenda. The bigots with a political agenda, means they are bidding for the return of political Islam. This will severely dent our almost five-decade-long traditional culture of tolerance, democracy, and secularism.

The zealots demand that the government should enact a blasphemy law, with a provision of a maximum penalty for criticizing the Prophet and the Qur’an.

In fact, the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami in 1993 had proposed in the parliament a draft blasphemy law, which was strikingly very similar to what Pakistan enacted in 1986. The draft was shredded by both the ruling and opposition lawmakers of that time.

Islamic scholars passionately debate that the Holy Qur’an has not sanctioned blasphemy. Nor is there any mentionable edict in the Hadith to punish a blasphemer in this living world.

The non-believers and blasphemers will be condemned to hell on the Day of Judgment.

They also do not hesitate to demand that the Qur’an and Sunnah replace the state constitution, which was earned from the Liberation War by millions of martyrs.

Unfortunately, the zealots were never accused of sedition or provoking a law and order situation.

Their interpretation of Wahhabi Islam has gradually penetrated into the minds of majoritarian Muslims in the country. The Wahhabi doctrine advocates strict Sharia laws that have been implemented in many conservative Muslim countries.

The bigots also harbor inner contradictions regarding the war crimes trial. The Islamists tacitly agree that henchmen of the marauding Pakistan army were responsible for crimes against humanity and should be brought to justice. Equally, they hate to see Islamists being punished for crimes perpetrated in 1971.

In a naive statement, the mullahs believe that the International Crimes Tribunal deliberately targeted Islamists because of pro-India secularists, the country which has immensely contributed to the birth of Bangladesh.

Intimidation by the Islamists is pushing a pluralistic society into a tight corner. Understanding that the state religion Islam will never be deleted from the constitution, their hate speech has multiplied.

The Islamists have dared to destabilize a secular fabric of the society and challenge the spirit of the Liberation War.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune newspaper on 26 November 2019
Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, also recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad; He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com

Who committed ethnic cleansing in Kashmir?

Kashmiris take cover as Indian security forces (unseen) fire teargas shells during clashes, after scrapping of the special constitutional status for Kashmir by the Indian government, in Srinagar, August 30, 2019. Photo: REUTERS

SALEEM SAMAD

Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan claims India's move to end the special status enjoyed by Kashmir by scrapping Article 370 was motivated by a 'Hindu supremacist version of Hitler's Lebensraum.'

For the sake of argument, if I agree to his argument, has he not been responsible for the violence which has significantly changed the Valley's demography? Pakistan has been aiding and abetting the jihadists responsible for terror in Kashmir.

Let's not forget that from the summer of 1989 until the winter of 1990, Kashmir witnessed a grotesque and bloody ethnic cleansing. Islamic militants operating in the Kashmir Valley sent a very dark, chilling message to non-Muslims in the region.

In effect, their warning said: "We order you to leave Kashmir immediately; otherwise your children will be harmed. We are not scaring you but this land is only for Muslims and is the land of Allah. Sikhs and Hindus cannot stay here. If you do not obey, we will start with your children. Zindabad Kashmir Liberation!"

SUCH sermons delivered from the pulpits, radical Islamists encouraged Muslims to take up arms and drive out the "Kafirs," the non-believers. The mosques in the Valley – roughly 1100 of them – blared their hate-filled, inflammatory speeches through their loudspeakers. "Islam is our objective, the Quran is our constitution, jihad is the way of our life," they called out.

The scary part was that they did not hesitate to issue warnings to the non-Muslims: "If you want to live in Kashmir, you must convert to Islam."

Spineless newspapers in Kashmir, published "press releases" funded by terror networks called on all Muslims to wage their Jihad against India.

On 14 April 1990, Al Safa, a local Urdu language daily, published a "press release" from Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, warning all non-Muslims to "leave Kashmir within 36 hours or face our bullets."

Hours after the deadline was over, the Jihadists launched a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing. Armed with Kalashnikov-AK47s, they patrolled the streets shouting slogans: "Oh Kafirs! Leave our Kashmir"; "From East to West, there will be an Islamic Ummah" They desecrated Hindu temples and vandalized several places of worship.

In the darkness of night, Hindu families were terrorized: men were dragged from their homes and shot dead. They were systematically targeted for their faith, which was not Islam.

The terror campaign claimed perhaps 60,000 lives, according to Amy Waldman of the New York Times.

Over half-a-million Hindu Pandits fled the Valley. This mass exodus caused a dramatic shift in Kashmir Valley's demography. Today, only a few thousand Hindus are left there.

Three Jihadi terror outfits - Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) – launched these attacks. They are Pakistan's proxies – "strategic assets," as the Pakistani military calls them. They were created, financed and trained by Pakistan's dreaded ISI.

After the expulsion of Kashmir's Pandits, the ISI operated 30 training camps in Pakistan for Kashmiri militants in 1990; by 2002, that number had ballooned to 128 camps training one thousand militants a year.

Unfortunately, the atrocities perpetrated by Pakistan backed Jihadist groups on Kashmiri pandits did not lead to global condemnation--- until many years later.

With Modi's revocation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, troll armies are drawing comparisons between Kashmir and Palestine; the world's media are busy painting a narrative presenting "blood brothers" India and Israel as "invaders," "occupiers," and "colonizers."

Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan's former Ambassador to the United States, stated that Pakistan supports terrorism.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned, "Pakistan must not provide a safe-haven for terrorists to threaten international security," as it is currently doing. Some of the world's most wanted terrorists - such as Hafiz Saeed, Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh – find a warm home in Pakistan and are consistently protected by the ISI.

Ironically, it is Imran Khan, who in a recent tweet, has expressed his concern over "impending genocide of Kashmiris" alleging that the there is an "attempt to change the demography of Kashmir through ethnic cleansing."

First published in the Bangla Tribune, 09 September 2019

Saleem Samad, is a journalist, media rights defender also recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad; Email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com

Where have the Hindus population gone?

A Hindu woman show an item from her family temple was damaged by militant Muslims - Photo:  Mahmud Hossain Opu

SALEEM SAMAD

Secularist Shahriar Kabir, Muntassir Mamoon, Prof Syed Anwar Hossain, Prof Imtiaz Ahmed, Prof Ameena Mohsin, Prof CR Abrar, Robaet Ferdous, and many others often contest the concept of “minority” as used by politicians, law-makers, bureaucrats, and policymakers.

They ask -- who is a “minority” in Bangladesh?

Imtiaz Ahmed and Amena Mohsin argued that the rule of “majoritarian” is in three segments. First, Bangalis are the majority in Bangladesh; second, they are Muslim in the majority, and third, they are by default bonded with Bangali nationalism.

The triple majority gives them a culturally homogenous population.

In this formulation, the political elites chose the dominant/majority community as a model of the nation, while the minority/weaker communities were expected to assimilate themselves with the “mainstream,” ie the dominant majority community, writes Prof Amena Mohsin.

Apparently, Bengal spearheaded racial politics, which ultimately led to the birth of Pakistan. All-India Muslim League was born in 1906 in Dhaka, and leaders from Bengal proposed the controversial two-nations theory, separate homeland for Indian Muslims.

The two-nation theory of Muhammad Ali Jinnah tore the Bangali community apart amongst Hindu and Muslim in 1947. The rest is history.

In the year 1946, 1947, 1992, and 2001, there was widespread racial violence which resulted in countless deaths and also triggered forced migration from both India and then East Pakistan.

Days after Khaleda Zia’s dramatic return to power after the general elections on October 1, the untold persecution of Hindu voters, as well as armed attacks on Awami League voters, raged throughout the country.

Filmmaker and journalist Shahriar Kabir had documented the persecution in several volumes and produced documentary films on the reign of terror unleashed by Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) henchmen and its alliance of Islamist parties.

Similarly, the AL government after a judicial inquiry into the violence during post-October 1 elections also published volumes of narratives of persecution -- mostly Hindus and AL’s local leaders and voters.

Abul Barakat, a renowned economist and professor of Dhaka University, predicts that in the next 30 years, there will be no Hindus living in this country. 

To establish his research, he claims that an average of 632 Hindus left the country each day and 230,612 annually.

Afsan Chowdhury, a liberation war historian and an academic explains “low-intensity violence” against religious and ethnic minorities caused forced migration.

In an article, “Disasters: Issues and Responses, in Philip Gain (ed) Bangladesh Environment: Facing the 21st Century,” published in 1988 by Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD), that the independence of Bangladesh has not brought much peace for Hindus who numbered about 10 million in Bangladesh.

Lack of socio-economic opportunities, low-intensity hostility at all socio-economic levels including the state, and greater opportunities across the border are the push-pull factors which have led to Hindus crossing through the porous border every day, writes Afsan Chowdhury.

The researcher further states that the Hindus are passing through a disaster situation as their life, property, and peace have all been made to feel insecure by the lack of security, and existing state policies and public action, which are forcing them to escape to another land, another society.

The declaration of Islam as the state religion may not have many institutional or formal ramifications, but it has made the minorities in Bangladesh distant from the core of the state. 

This illustrates how low-intensity violence against minorities can push millions into a state of silent disaster.

Mohiuddin Ahmad, a writer, and researcher in an article in Weekly Holiday published on January 7, 1994, writes that the first census (1974) of independent Bangladesh registered the population of Hindus to be 13.5% of the total population. 

This proportion dropped down to 12.1% in 1981 and 10.5% in 1991, while the proportion of Buddhists and Christians remained stable. The Muslim population, however, increased from 85.4% in 1974 to 88.3% in 1991.

He argues that the Hindu population cannot wither away. In demographic terms, the situation has to be addressed using relevant parameters of fertility, morality, growth rate, and migration.

Nearly 78 years ago in 1941, 28.3% of the total population was comprised of minorities.

The population of Hindus was 11.88 million. Despite the population growth, the present Hindu population stands at around 12 million.

If the normal increase rate prevailed, the number of the Hindu community in this country would have been 32.5 million, but the Hindu population in Bangladesh stood at 12.5 million in the 1991 census. Therefore, the missing population is 20 million or more by now.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 28 July 2019

Saleem Samad is an Ashoka Fellow, recipient of Hellman-Hammett Award, a freelance journalist, and media rights defender.

Black Friday: A year ago ISIS militants deadly seize

Photo: Smiling five militants posted in ISIS online

The country's past as a recruitment hotbed for global Islamist jihad returns to haunt its future as it grapples with a new wave of terror

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh is still coming to grips with the exceptional brutality of its worst terrorist outrage, the horrific Black Friday attack at Dhaka's Holey Artisan cafe on July 1. Twenty hostages, including 18 foreign nationals and two policemen, were killed when the six terrorists, said to be an IS-affiliated group, took them hostage. Indian teenager, Tarishi Jain, was among those who were shot, had their throats slit and bodies mutilated.

Five of the six terrorists were shot dead after security forces stormed the cafe following a 10-hour standoff. The sixth survived and is being interrogated by security forces.

What has shocked Bangladeshis is the profile of the terrorists. Mostly in their early 20s, they were products of the country's upper middle class elite (one was the son of a senior member of the ruling Awami League party. Some are even believed to have been regulars at the two-storeyed cafe located in Dhaka's upscale Gulshan area.

The attack marked the debut of what has been the prototype home-grown terrorist in recent times, well-educated and well-versed in using social media tools, fitting the cosmopolitan profile terrorist outfits like Al Qaeda and IS have used in recent terror attacks from Paris to Istanbul. "Gone are the madrasa recruits from the impoverished rural countryside," says Humayun Kabir, senior research director at the Dhaka-based think-tank, Bangladesh Enterprise Institute.

The attack was the culmination of a wave of atrocities by unidentified machete-wielding assailants against the country's religious minorities. Hindus, Buddhists and Christians priests, bloggers, writers, publishers and moderate Muslims. Islamic extremists have killed over 40 people in such attacks since 2013. Over 16,000 people were arrested in a crackdown in June this year but clearly it was a little too late.

Typically, the government's response has been one of disbelief. "Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such an act," Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina said on July 2. "They do not have any religion. Their only religion is terrorism."

A day after the attack, IS posted photographs showing five of the youth posing in front of the group's black flags, claiming credit for the attack. Bangladesh officials, however, are still calling it the work of local militants.

If Black Friday exposed the chinks in the country's security system, it also exposed the government's refusal to recognise the Muslim radicals in their midst. "Hasina used to scoff at claims of homegrown Islamist terrorists linked to the global terror network," says columnist Syed Badrul Ahsan. "She blamed opposition leader Khaleda Zia for harbouring terrorists."

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal had termed the spate of killings over the past year as isolated incidents. He clearly had no inkling of what was coming. "It was a time bomb waiting to explode," says liberation war veteran Sachin Karmaker.

Bangladesh's history of state-backed radicalisation dates back to the late 1970s and can be traced specifically to the close ties between the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Jamaat-e-Islami whose leaders had participated in the genocide of 1971.

In the 1980s, 8,000 Bangladeshi youth, many of them left and socialist-leaning, volunteered to fight for the Palestine Liberation Organisation, a year after Yasser Arafat visited Dhaka to a warm welcome from media and political circles. Most of them returned home after the defeat and expulsion from Lebanon in 1982. Soon after 9/11, over a thousand Bangladeshi nationals who had joined the Taliban, fled to Pakistan when the American coalition invaded Afghanistan. Since then, Bangladesh has been convulsed with the attempts of the Afghan veterans to launch a jihad in their native country.

Counter-terrorism security agencies have had some success in the past, which the present Hasina regime, in power since 2008, has had too, dismantling some terror cells. The Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) spilled over into the neighbouring Indian states of West Bengal and Assam. Since then, possibly with the full knowledge of domestic security agencies, hundreds of Bangladeshi fighters, most of them poor rural youth, have joined secret wars in 36 countries, from Chechnya in Russia to Aceh in Indonesia.

The new phase of Bangladesh's war with itself began in the wave of the recent machete attacks. In most cases, the purpose of the attacks and the identities of the perpetrators remain a mystery. An international outcry forced the government to respond by banning a dozen Islamist outfits, including the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), believed to be behind the blogger attacks. However, the fact is that both the Hasina and earlier Khaleda Zia governments have harboured Islamist groups at some point and refrained from antagonising the clerics. Both have also backed off from implementing policies like women's empowerment and a national education policy (religious parties call it anti-Islamic).

Counter-terrorism specialists say Bangladesh is unprepared for this new form of terrorism. Online recruiters use social media to recruit their targets. Sleeper cells in the heart of the cities and towns run on small budgets, secret safehouses hide would-be jihadists while the familiarisation and adaptation jigs are on. Recruiters spend cash to procure weapons and bombs from gun-runners. It's during the internship that the future jihadists carry out the hit-and-run machete attacks. The reward for a good performance is a promotion to the sleeper cells, explains Kabir.

An unknown number of militants have escaped police dragnets to join IS in Syria and Iraq. The Bangladesh Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence Bureau, a CIA-trained outfit, does not know the exact number as yet. It does not know how many may have travelled to the terror hotspots to join IS . It does not know how many have returned either. Just as it doesn't know how many attackers like the Black Friday six are waiting to strike.

First published in India Today magazine, July 7, 2016

Saleem Samad, an Ashoka Fellow (USA), is an award winning investigative journalists and Special Correspondent of The Asian Age, published from Dhaka, Bangladesh

Future looks fraught in polarised Bangladesh

Dhaka's rival political matriarchs must talk to each other for the good of their country

SAMIRA SHACKLE

It is a story worthy of great theatre: the bitter rivalry between two women that is tearing apart a country.

Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia head the two main political parties of Bangladesh, and have swapped power back and forth for the last 20 years.

The relationship between the two “battling begums” has come under international scrutiny recently, after Bangladesh suffered the most violent election in its short history. More than 100 people died during the campaign, with the country disrupted by strikes, blockades, and violent clashes between police and opposition supporters.

The controversy started well before the country went to the polls on 5 January. Since 1996, Bangladesh has held elections under a neutral caretaker government. In 2010, Hasina’s Awami League party, buoyed by a strong parliamentary majority, decided to abolish the provision. The opposition, Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) took issue with this, saying that a fair election could not be guaranteed without a neutral body overseeing it. The Awami League would not set up a caretaker government. The BNP boycotted the election.

Hasina decided to go ahead with the poll. Inevitably, her party – unopposed in 153 of the country’s 300 constituencies – won. But, equally inevitably, the validity of a contest in which there was only one real option has been questioned. The election result was also undermined by an unusually low turnout, with the government putting the figure at under 40 per cent and others reporting far less than that.

This was not just to do with voters choosing not to vote, but with a systematic campaign of intimidation and violence by supporters of the opposition BNP. Enforcing blockades, strikes, and boycotts, supporters of the BNP and their allies, the Jamaat-e-Islami, petrol bombed buses carrying workers, and set fire to shops that had opened in defiance of the strikes.

“The violence perpetrated against people who have not complied with the opposition call is a criminal act and it is the responsibility of the government to bring the attackers to justice,” says Abbas Faiz, Bangladesh researcher for Amnesty International. “But the majority of people who died during the two months of elections died from gunshot wounds. There is a strong possibility the police may have used excessive force.” Amnesty is calling for immediate investigations to identify the perpetrators of attacks, and to establish whether the force used by police was lawful. In a statement, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called on “all sides to exercise restraint and ensure first and foremost a peaceful and conducive environment, where people can maintain their right to assembly and expression.”

Elections in Bangladesh tend to be big public events, with people getting up early to join famously long queues and proudly displaying their ink stained fingers. Yet people in the capital Dhaka during this year’s election described an eerie calm. Voting took place in just nine of 20 seats in the city. There were vicious attacks on the country’s Hindu minority, who make up around 10 per cent of the population and tend to support the Awami League.

The consensus seems to be that both of the main parties are equally culpable for the farce that the election has descended into. An editorial in the country’s Daily Star newspaper said that the Awami League had won “a predictable and hollow victory, which gives it neither a mandate nor an ethical standing to govern effectively”. Its verdict on Zia and her associates was no better: “Political parties have the right to boycott elections. But what is unacceptable is using violence and intimidation to thwart an election.”

The election chaos comes after a year of ugly political violence in Bangladesh: around 500 people were killed in political clashes during 2013, making it one of the most violent years since independence in 1971. This began with a mass popular movement against religious fundamentalism. Named the Shahbag movement, after the area of Dhaka where it began, the protests swiftly triggered a backlash from the religious right and their supporters. Much of this polarisation – between secularists and Islamists – had been precipitated by the government’s war crimes tribunal. Prosecuting people for crimes committed during the war of independence in 1971, the tribunal has reopened old tensions. Islamists claim it is being used to shut down the opposition, while secularists argue that the sentences (which include the death penalty) are not harsh enough.

Now, several weeks after the election, the political system remains in crisis. Zia is effectively under house arrest, while Hasina’s victory is seen across the board as empty. International and domestic observers alike say that the only way forward is for the two women to sit down together and hammer out a compromise. With early elections expected within the next 18 months, and with political uncertainty and violence continuing, this is ever more pressing.

This article was published on 21 January 2014 at indexoncensorship.org

The haunted Hindus of Santhia

SALEEM SAMAD in Santhia, Pabna

As she loiters past damaged houses in Sahaparha village, 5-year old ‘Orgho’ fumes over her smashed water mug, plastic chair and, most loudly, about the damaged television in her house.

She blames the Nov 2 mayhem on Kali Puja day on 'dustu chelera’ (naughty boys).

Her mother is cautious, as she recollects how she hid in a smelly toilet for three hours to escape an armed mob of fanatic Muslims.

A part of her house was smashed to smithereens.

The State Minister for Home Shamsul Hoque Tuku had gathered at Karamjat madrasa ground to thwart Opposition protests, barely 10 kilometres from Bongram bazaar at Santhia.

That was just before the Muslim mob, fuming over a reported Facebook posting denigrating Prophet Muhammad, went on an orgy of violence in Santhia.

Sahaparha was one of the worst affected because the Facebook posting was blamed on Rajib Saha, a resident of the village.

The conspirators deliberately chose Saturday, a weekly haat-bazaar day.

On the day hundreds of photocopies of an alleged Facebook posting were distributed, indicating that Rajib Saha had insulted the Prophet.

The distribution left Muslims of all parties inflamed.

What followed was hours of violence in which at least 40 Hindu homes were ravaged.

The young women are yet to return to villages, as fear grips the Hindus in the area.

They are worried because those suspected of perpetrating the mayhem have not been arrested.

Worse, the Hindus now suspect that many who made up the violent mob enjoy protection of senior Awami League politicians including local MP and State Minister for Home Shamsul Hoque Tuku.

This is what has shocked them most - how could those attacking them enjoy Awami League protection!

Tuku has also been blamed for letting the police on Awami League dissidents close to senior leader Prof Abu Sayeed, one-time close confidante of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

But what about the alleged Facebook posting!

Like many similar so-called Facebook postings that inflamed Muslims and led to anti-minority violence elsewhere in the country like Ramu, this one allegedly by Rajib Saha also appeared a complete fake.

Journalists in Pabna argued that the photocopy of the Facebook ostensibly posted by Rajib was 'photoshopped' from a fake account “Innocent Rajib”.

Much like the alleged Facebook posting at Ramu in Cox's Bazar in September last year, in which hundreds of Buddhist homes were vandalised and scores of pagodas desecrated.

The miscreants in both Ramu and Santhia seem to have lost no time to loot valuables and cash in the second wave of violence following the initial fury.

Superintendent of Police (SP) of Pabna Mirajuddin Ahmed promised that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.

But he was quick to add that the attackers had not been identified. Except for those who spoke to Rajib's father Babul Saha in the morning.

Have the conspirators been arrested? ‘No,’ said Babul Saha who filed the case with police.

Ataikula Police Station OC Rezaul Karim claims they have arrested several of the suspects. Three cases have been lodged including one by police for obstruction to perform duty.

Police officials told visiting civil society groups, rights activists and journalists that those named by Babul Saha have been arrested.

But Saha said he had only heard of the arrests and was not able to confirm them.

Deputy Commissioner of Pabna Ashraf Uddin explained it was a 'police matter' and progressing “very well”.

But he said the civil administration had nothing much to do, except for initiating a confidence-building process after the violence.

The victims of Bonogram, Sahaparha and Goshparha have rejected the district administration’s offer of relief of 30 sacks of rice (each weighing 28 kg).

Rajib's uncle Kartick Saha says they need protection, not rice which they can afford to buy.

Like the Buddhists in Ramu, the Hindus in Santhia want the government to compensate them for the damaged temples to facilitate reconstruction.

A RAB platoon and two platoons of armed police have been deployed in Santhia. Police presence, says the SP, will deter a repeat of Nov 2.

He added a permanent police camp will be established there.

Local journalists say minister Tuku received news of violence in 10 minutes. But he did not do enough to protect the Hindus.

A small police contingent arrived within 30 minutes after desperate phone calls from Babul Saha.

But the larger force of police and RAB came only after three hours of intense violence, the elders complain.

Most Hindu elders do not remember when they had faced violence like they did on Nov 2.

Some recollect violence during 1971 by marauding Pakistan army and their local collaborators.

As most Hindus here had fled to India for safety, they did not have any direct experience of violence -- not until November 2.

Like other planned attacks on religious minorities elsewhere in Bangladesh, the perpetrators targeted the house of worship to break the morale of the minorities.

It is a pattern that has often been repeated - at Taindong (Khagrhachharhi), Ramu and Ukhia (Cox’s Bazar), Sathkira, Begumganj, Gaibanda, Lalmonirhat, and other places.

But the biggest worry - leaders of all political parties belonging to the majority community, despite their political differences, seem to take the same line of connivance or indifference when minorities are attacked.

First published in bdnews24.com, 11 November 2013

Saleem Samad, a senior journalist, is a freelance contributor to bdnews24.com

The haunted Hindus of Santhia

Saleem Samad in Santhia, Pabna

As she loiters past damaged houses in Sahaparha village, 5-year old ‘Orgho’ fumes over her smashed water mug, plastic chair and, most loudly, about the damaged television in her house.

She blames the Nov 2 mayhem on Kali Puja day on 'dustu chelera’ (naughty boys).

Her mother is cautious, as she recollects how she hid in a smelly toilet for three hours to escape an armed mob of fanatic Muslims.

A part of her house was smashed to smithereens.

The State Minister for Home Shamsul Hoque Tuku had gathered at Karamjat madrasa ground to thwart Opposition protests, barely 10 kilometres from Bongram bazaar at Santhia.

That was just before the Muslim mob, fuming over a reported Facebook posting denigrating Prophet Muhammad, went on an orgy of violence in Santhia.

Sahaparha was one of the worst affected because the Facebook posting was blamed on Rajib Saha, a resident of the village.

The conspirators deliberately chose Saturday, a weekly haat-bazaar day.

On the day hundreds of photocopies of an alleged Facebook posting were distributed, indicating that Rajib Saha had insulted the Prophet.

The distribution left Muslims of all parties inflamed.

What followed was hours of violence in which atleast 40 Hindu homes were ravaged.

The young women are yet to return to villages, as fear grips the Hindus in the area.

They are worried because those suspected of perpetrating the mayhem have not been arrested.

Worse, the Hindus now suspect that many who made up the violent mob enjoy protection of senior Awami League politicians including local MP and State Minister for Home Shamsul Hoque Tuku.

This is what has shocked them most -- how could those attacking them enjoy Awami League protection!

Tuku has also been blamed for letting the police on Awami League dissidents close to senior leader Prof Abu Sayeed, one time close confidante of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

But what about the alleged Facebook posting!

Like many similar so-called Facebook postings that inflamed Muslims and led to anti-minority violence elsewhere in the country like Ramu, this one allegedly by Rajib Saha also appeared a complete fake.

Journalists in Pabna argued that the photocopy of the Facebook ostensibly posted by Rajib was 'photoshopped' from a fake account “Innocent Rajib”.

Much like the alleged Facebook posting at Ramu in Cox's Bazar in September last year, in which hundreds of Buddhist homes were vandalised and scores of pagodas desecrated.

The miscreants in both Ramu and Santhia seem to have lost no time to loot valuables and cash in the second wave of violence following the initial fury.

Superintendent of Police (SP) of Pabna Mirajuddin Ahmed promised that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.

But he was quick to add that the attackers had not been identified. Except for those who spoke to Rajib's father Babul Saha in the morning.

Have the conspirators been arrested? ‘No,’ said Babul Saha who filed the case with police.

Ataikula Police Station OC Rezaul Karim claims they have arrested several of the suspects. Three cases have been lodged including one by police for obstruction to perform duty.

Police officials told visiting civil society groups, rights activists and journalists that those named by Babul Saha have been arrested.

But Saha said he had only heard of the arrests and was not able to confirm them.

Deputy Commissioner of Pabna Ashraf Uddin explained it was a 'police matter' and progressing “very well”.

But he said the civil administration had nothing much to do, except for initiating a confidence-building process after the violence.

The victims of Bonogram, Sahaparha and Goshparha have rejected the district administration’s offer of relief of 30 sacks of rice (each weighing 28 kg).

Rajib's uncle Kartick Saha says they need protection, not rice which they can afford to buy.

Like the Buddhists in Ramu, the Hindus in Santhia want the government to compensate them for the damaged temples to facilitate reconstruction.

A RAB platoon and two platoons of armed police have been deployed in Santhia. Police presence, says the SP, will deter a repeat of Nov 2.

He added a permanent police camp will be established there.

Local journalists say minister Tuku received news of violence in 10 minutes. But he did not do enough to protect the Hindus.

A small police contingent arrived within 30 minutes after desperate phone calls from Babul Saha.

But the larger force of police and RAB came only after three hours of intense violence, the elders complain.

Most Hindu elders do not remember when they had faced violence like they did on Nov 2.

Some recollect violence during 1971 by marauding Pakistan army and their local collaborators.

As most Hindus here had fled to India for safety, they did not have any direct experience of violence -- not until Nov 2.

Like other planned attacks on religious minorities elsewhere in Bangladesh, the perpetrators targeted the house of worship to break the morale of the minorities.

It is a pattern that has often been repeated -- at Taindong (Khagrhachharhi), Ramu and Ukhia (Cox’s Bazar), Sathkira, Begumganj, Gaibanda, Lalmonirhat and other places.

But the biggest worry -- leaders of all political parties belonging to the majority community, despite their political differences, seem to take the same line of connivance or indifference when minorities are attacked.

First published in BDNEWS24.COM, 11 Nov 2013

Saleem Samad, is an Ashoka Fellow for journalism, an award winning investigative reporter, is a freelance contributor to bdnews24.com