Investigators have arrested 44 people in an attempt to quell religious tension that broke out in eastern Bangladesh after a Muslim crowd recently vandalised Hindu homes and temples, police said yesterday.
Thirty-three were detained in an overnight raid for their alleged involvement in the October 30 attacks, chief of Brahmanbaria district police
Mizanur Rahman said.
That followed 11 previous
arrests.
During the incident, hundreds of Muslims attacked Hindu homes and temples, allegedly inflamed because of a controversial social media post by a Hindu man.
Hindus are a religious minority in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. Less than 10% of the 160m nation’s inhabitants are Hindus.
The Facebook post, which showed an image of the Hindu god Shiva on top of the Great Mosque in Makkah, angered many Muslims.
Amid the violence, five homes belonging to Hindus were set on fire, prompting the government to deploy an additional 500 security personnel to maintain order in the Hindu village of Nasirnagar, which is located more than 90kms east of the capital Dhaka.
The ruling Awami League party of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expelled three of its local unit leaders for instigating the Muslim crowd to carry out the attacks on the religious
minorities.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, an opposition party led by former prime minister Khaleda Zia, accused the Awami League of carrying out the
attacks.
The party asked the government to launch a judicial inquiry to bring the culprit to justice.
Human rights groups said the attacks on the Hindus were deliberate and demanded transparent investigation into the “mayhem.”
Amid tensions over last week’s attacks on Hindu homes and temples, unidentified people on Friday torched several more homes in Brahmanbaria district in Bangladesh, media reports said, IANS reports.
Locals said at around 4am, miscreants set fire to six dwelling structures of the Hindu community in Nasirnagar upazila of Brahmanbaria, including a cowshed, three kitchen rooms and two houses.
No one was injured in the
incidents.
The destroyed homes were in the villages of Jaynagar Pashchimpara, Banikpara and Hashpatalpara. The homestead owners said the fires had been started in cowsheds and kitchens.
Deputy Commissioner of Brahmanbaria Rezaul Rehman, who visited the scene, said: “I will have to talk to the local public representatives and decide the steps that need to be taken regarding the matter,” Dhaka Tribune quoted him as saying.
Local leaders of Awami League visited the spot.
“It seems like it has become impossible for us to stay here anymore. Today it was the temple. Next time maybe they will set fire to us,” said a local who narrowly escaped the fire.
The incident comes four days after a mob of around 3,000 local Muslims armed with weapons carried out an attack on nearly 100 Hindu houses and at least 10 temples, vandalising and looting valuables.