Chittagong, February 27, 2012:
Bangladesh government is failing to ensure protection for its citizen and Hindu community which is a ‘minority. This is alleged by ‘JusticeMakers Bangladesh’, a human rights watchdog in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a secular ‘People’s Republic’ but having a strong dominance of the Islamic fundamentalists since
its inception.Responding to the recent incident of vandalising and attempting to torch Hindu Loknath Temple in Hathazari near Chittagong, the ‘Justice Makers Bangladesh’ immediately came into action to reveal facts behind the incident.
its inception.Responding to the recent incident of vandalising and attempting to torch Hindu Loknath Temple in Hathazari near Chittagong, the ‘Justice Makers Bangladesh’ immediately came into action to reveal facts behind the incident.
This incident of communal arson attack on Hindu religion minority community in Hathazari Upazila under Chittagong District was perpetrated on February 09 and 10, 2012. Elements like radical Islamic Jamaat E Islami's cadre were suspected to do this illegitimate act against Hindus.
According to the local people, on 9 February, Hindus in the area took out a procession to celebrate the founding anniversary of Loknath Sebasram. They used microphone and drums in the procession. When the procession was passing a mosque, Muslims in the mosque forbade them to drums. At stage, someone from mosque hurled a brick bat on the procession one. An altercation took place at once which turned into chase and counter-chase when someone from the procession responded by throwing a brick bat. Police organised a meeting between the two parties. A group of Muslims said that the meeting will be held in the mosque and the Hindus agreed. The meeting started in the evening. Requesting anonymity, several of those who attended the meeting told Media that a handful of miscreants vandalised a temple on the Loknath Sebasram premises when the meeting was underway. They also vandalised seven to eight cars of the temple's visitors.
Understanding the gravity and sensitivity of the issue, JusticeMakers Bangladesh immediately formed a fact finding team of five members under the leadership of its Chief Executive Officer Adv. Shahanur Islam. The members of this team were, Adv. Mohammad Alamgir, Vice Chairman JusticeMakers Bangladesh, Ganesh Rajbonshee, fact finding officer of JusticeMakers Bangladesh.
The Fact Finding team conducted an investigation mission from February 23 to 25, 2012. During the time of investigation, the fact finding team visited the all spots of incident, talked with the victim of arson attacked as well as physical assault, talked with the eyewitness, local civil society people and local administration as well as collected the all information and documented it with video and still picture format. It was the JusticeMakers Bangladesh, which published live footage of the attack which is available on the Internet.
The JusticeMakers Bangladesh team found tremendous horror in the minds of the victims of this violence. Though the victims of violence knew most of the perpetrators, they refused to mention their identity and disclose their name scaring for imagining future trouble.
The JusticeMakers Bangladesh fact finding team documented at least 13 temples, 6 minority Hindu homes and 6 business shops which were set fire to ashes, vandalized and looted the valuable properties and also physically assaulted Hindus.
After this splendid on-the-spot investigation, JusticeMakers Bangladesh team candidly stated its observations. Leader of the JusticeMakers Bangladesh fact finding team told NewsBharati that, “The attack was preplanned and was patronized by some Islamic and non Islamic political parties trying to spread own created communal rumor of destruction of a local mosque.” The team also observed that the arson attacked, physical assault, looting and vandalizing activities have been perpetrated on the nose of local administration.
As the Hindu violence victims informed the local administration to ensure their protection, the local administration primarily assured them to ensure their security, but unfortunately due to some ‘unknown’ reason it failed to protect the Hindu Community and restrain the attack.
JusticeMakers Bangladesh also observed that during the attack, the Police machinery remain idle, blind and did nothing to stop the vandalism. Moreover, though the police registered the five criminal cases with the Hathazari as well as arrested 21 perpetrators connecting the incident. But having no coordination, it has failed to arrest the main perpetrators.
JusticeMakers Bangladesh has said that it is gravely concerned over this incident of communal arson attack on minority Hindu community in Hathazari Upazila under Chittagong district and is demanding to bring the perpetrators before the Law. JusticeMakers Bangladesh also demands urgent and impartial judicial investigation by High court judge in this case to reveal main accused behind this attack on Minority community and rehabilitate the victim of violence earliest possible.