ATTACK, again in B'baria
Despite heavy presence of law enforcers, a fresh arson attack on a Hindu house took place in Nasirnagar of Brahmanbaria yesterday.
Two platoons of BGB, more than 500 policemen and plainclothes detectives have been deployed in the upazila after the October 30 atrocities on Hindus.
And a Rab camp with at least 30 personnel has been set up there, Nasirnagar UNO Choudhury Muazzem Ahmed told The Daily Star.
Yet the arson attack could not be averted yesterday. The incident follows torching of five Hindu homes early Friday, spreading panic among already frightened local Hindu community.
Some unidentified people set fire to the house of Nasirnagar Upazila Vice-Chairman Anjan Kumar Dev at Dutta Para sometime between 6:00pm and 6:30pm, said Mohiuddin Ahmed, sub-inspector of Nasirnagar Police Station.
The fire burnt the veranda and locals managed to douse it before it could spread to other parts of the house. There was no report of anyone being hurt.
Anjan, also the president of Nasirnagar unit of Jubo League, the youth wing of ruling Awami League, has been critical of the local administration and police for their roles on October 30.
Religious zealots that day vandalised and looted around 200 houses and business establishments and 17 temples of Hindus and beat up more than 100 people in Nasirnagar town and Haripur union of the upazila.
“I have been protesting the [October 30] attack. For this, people involved in that attack might have torched my house,” Anjan told The Daily Star last night over phone.
The Nasirnagar mayhem was over a Facebook post purportedly from the account of Rasraj Das, a local fisherman, “hurting the religious sentiment” of the Muslims.
Rasraj, 27, now in jail in a case filed over the post, claimed before his arrest that he had nothing to do with the post. He still apologised for it while relatives said the account might have been hacked.
CRITICISM, PROTEST
Amid widespread criticism over the failure of law enforcers and the local administration to prevent the mayhem, the officer-in-charge of Nasirnagar police was withdrawn.
As the protest against the Nasirnagar attack continued countrywide, different organisations demanded resignation of Fisheries and Livestock Minister Mohammed Sayedul Hoque, who is also the lawmaker from Nasirnagar, and UNO Choudhury Muazzem.
“Had the local administration and police been sincere enough, these repeated attacks would not have taken place,” said Rana Dasgupta, general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu-Bouddha-Christian Oikya Parishad.
“It seems, there are problems within,” he said, requesting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to intervene.
He alleged that Minister Sayedul had threatened local Hindu leaders on several occasions for protesting the attacks.
“After his [the minister's] threat, Anjan's house came under attack. So it should be investigated whether the minister or his associates were behind it,” Rana told The Daily Star last night.
Shahriar Kabir, acting president of Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee, said the local administration played questionable role and that's why its investigation is not acceptable.
He demanded judicial inquiry into Nasirnagar hate crimes.
A delegation of the Nirmul Committee led by Shahriar visited the affected area yesterday.
In the morning, locals of Rishipara in the upazila foiled an attempted attack on Hindu households, said Md Abu Zafar, newly appointed officer-in-charge of Nasirnagar Police Station.
Some people came to attack the Hindu-dominated neighbourhood around 11:00am. But locals put up resistance and the intruders fled immediately on boats through the adjacent haor (wetland), he added.
Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, Minister Sayedul Hoque, also AL lawmaker from Nasirnagar, said, “None but locals from his upazila carried out the fresh attacks on the Hindu people to create unrest and gain political mileage.
“No outsiders were involved in this. It is the locals that carried out the criminal activities.”
Asked about yesterday's arson, he said, “It [Anjan Dev's house] was set afire when the deputy commissioner, superintendent of police and additional DIG of Chittagong Range [chief of the investigation team formed by Police Headquarters] were holding meeting at Nasirnagar.”
When his attention was drawn to the expulsion of three local AL leaders, known as his aides, for their alleged involvement in the mayhem, Sayedul said, the president of Brahmanbaria AL did this for his political gain.
“The district Awami League team didn't visit the area. They didn't even talk to me on this incident. They have expelled the three Awami League leaders who actually resisted the attack,” he said.
The district AL president, Obaidul Muktadir Chowdhury, could not be contacted yesterday.
Replying to a query, Sayedul claimed there is no sense of anxiety or fear among the Hindus in the area “as the situation is normal now”.
The minister's role came into question as he allegedly made derogatory remarks about Hindus following the attacks. He, however, denies the allegation.
He was widely criticised for claiming that the hate attack was “not that serious” and that “only one or two incidents of looting took place”.
The minister also claimed barely "one or two houses were affected" and then went on to accuse the media of exaggeration.
Sayedul, for the first time after Brahmanbaria mayhem, will brief the media today, a PID handout said.
Local Hindu leaders will also hold a press briefing.
33 MORE ARRESTED
Law enforcers arrested 33 more persons between Friday night and yesterday morning for suspected involvement in the atrocities.
“After examining the video clips of the incident, police in the overnight drive arrested the 33, raising the total number of arrestees to 44,” the OC said.
Family members and relatives of several arrestees, however, claimed they were innocent.
“My brother-in-law Ziaul Haque Khokon came to our house last night to see my father. Police early yesterday took him away from our home,” said Masuk, a local journalist, from Nurpur village.
Three separate committees -- two formed by the government and one by the ruling Awami League -- are now visiting Nasirnagar, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said yesterday.
He said two committees were formed by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the home ministry and the other by the Awami League, he said at a programme in the city.
Local administration and police already formed three inquiry committees earlier.
IDOL RECOVERED FROM MOSQUE
OC Abu Zafar said police had recovered an idol of Goddess Laxmi from a mosque at Bitui in Kunda union of Nasirnagar.
Acting on a tip-off, police went to the mosque at dawn and recovered a two-foot idol, the goddess of wealth in Hindu religion, and took it to police station.
He said that additional forces were deployed at the village to avoid any untoward incident.
BNP ACCUSES AL, HANIF REFUTES
BNP Vice-Chairman Maj (retd) Hafizuddin Ahmed said expulsion of three local AL leaders proved that the ruling party was involved in the Nasirnagar mayhem.
Hafiz said this at a press briefing at the party chairperson's Gulshan office yesterday, a day after a 15-member team of the party led by Hafiz visited the affected area on Friday.
AL Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif refuted Hafiz's accusation and said communal forces, which envy the government its development activities, carried out the attack.
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