Rallying to protect communal harmony

Teachers and students of Al-Jamiatul Ahlia Darul Ulum Muinul Islam Madrasa, popularly known as Hathazari Madrasa, saved a temple from vandalism when a group of people started throwing brick chunks at it on Sunday evening. 

This initiative of the madrasa, which shares a wall with Shri Shri Sitakali Central Temple, during a demonstration protesting the Bhola incident was praised in the locality and on social media.   

Udoy Sen, general secretary of the Shri Shri Sitakali Sebok Samiti, told The Daily Star yesterday that when a procession of over 1,000 people was passing the temple, some of them pelted brick chunks and also tried to enter the temple premises, breaking the main gate.

“At that time, the madrasa students and teachers tried to resist, but failed at first. Later, more madrasa students joined them and formed a human chain to protect the temple,” he said.

Farid Uddin, a student of the madrasa, who took part in the move to save the temple, told this correspondent that Islam does not support attacks on places of worship of other religious communities.

“As a Muslim majority country, it is our religious duty to save the people and establishments of other religious faiths.”

He added that the madrasa students were demonstrating peacefully. But a vested quarter might have tried to vandalise the temple to tarnish the image of the madrasa.   

Kamrul Islam, a local shopkeeper, said such initiatives of the madrasa students had brightened the image of the madrasa as well as the locality.

If the madrasa students remain alert during any such incident in future, the communal harmony would be greater, he added.  

While visiting the temple, this correspondent found that some iron bars of the main gate and two windowpanes at the top of the temple were broken.  

According to local sources, the madrasa was established in 1901 and the temple in 1939.