Form panels to maintain harmony

LGRD Minister Md Tajul Islam. File photo

Local representatives have been directed to form committees at the ward level across the country to identify anyone involved in spreading rumours and creating anarchy.

Local Government Division Minister Tazul Islam yesterday gave the directives at a virtual view-exchange meeting, attended by mayors of city corporations and municipalities, local government representatives and officials, after the recent Cumilla incident and subsequent attacks on temples and the Hindu community,

"Committees are needed to tackle those who intentionally try to create anarchy in the country by creating divisions among religions and inciting radicalism."

The committees will be comprised of union parishad members and eminent persons of society and they will ensure communal harmony amongst people from all religions.

He said local representatives will have to take the responsibility of ensuring religious harmony.

"A vested quarter is orchestrating malicious activities to destroy communal harmony and make one play against another," he said, adding that elected representatives of the union parishad, upazila parishad, municipality, and city corporations must remain cautious in this regard.

Keeping the coexistence of people of all religions intact is an important role for elected local government representatives to play, he also said.

Tazul suggested local representatives remain alert about what is happening inside mosques, temples and other religious establishments, so that no one can commit any offence in those places.

A provocative social media campaign centring the alleged defamation of the Holy Quran at a Puja venue in Cumilla on October 13 triggered communal violence across the country, leaving scores of people injured.