September  2004 
Year 11    No.101

Cover Story


Living with terror:
Minorities in Bangladesh
Cover boxes
1) Hindu family subjected to rape and murder

2) Ahmadiya Imam killed in Jessore

3) Ahmadiya community ostracised in Kushtia village
4) Anti-Ahmadiya rally draws thousands

5) Justice delayed: Minorities and post-election violence

BY NURUL KABIR

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. … the time is always ripe to do right. …Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity."
— Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963.

As night fell in the village of Sadhanpur under Banshkhali upazila, some 25 km south of Chittagong, on November 18, 2003, the members of Tejendra Lal Shil’s extended family retired for the night in their two-storeyed earthen house.

Just after midnight, a band of 25 armed criminals forced their way into the house.  The family members sleeping upstairs woke up and locked the doors in a desperate bid to protect themselves. Denied entry to the top floor rooms, the criminals locked the doors from outside, doused the ground floor with a petroleum product and set fire to the house.

The fire spread within moments, trapping those inside. As people in the neighbourhood came out amidst screams of the dying, the criminals fired several gunshots and left the place. Of the 12 family members that night, only one, Bimal Shil, son of Tejendra Lal Shil, survived the carnage, by jumping out of a window, breaking one of his legs in the process. The remaining 11, including seven women and a new-born baby, perished in the fire.

"The mortal remains of the charred bodies of an entire family reminded many of the vicious killer episodes of Mississippi Burning, the celebrated Hollywood film on Ku Klux Klan carnage," wrote the Dhaka-based English language national daily, The New Age, on November 20. Police initially claimed the attack was a robbery.

The victims of the grisly incident were from the minority Hindu community, while the alleged perpetrators of the mayhem belong to the majority community of Muslims. Moreover, the minorities in question happened to be property owners fairly well known in the locality.

A disturbing number of incidents involving minorities, in 2003 and earlier, follow similar patterns.

Janakantha, a Dhaka-based Bangla daily, reported on October 27 that a politically influential member of the local Union Parishad had forcibly occupied 4.5 acres of cultivable land of a Christian family at Mirzapur village of Itail Union under Jamalpur district. Again, the alleged perpetrator of the crime, Munser Ali, was from the majority community. Another Bangla daily, Bhorer Kagoj, reported on September 17 that a group of local political activists forcibly encroached on some land of a Buddhist vihara of the Rakhaine community in the coastal Kalapara upazila under Patuakhali district. Once again, the perpetrators of the illegal act were Muslims.

The year 2003 was especially notable for attacks on a formerly low profile religious minority, the Ahmadiyas, also known as the Kadianis. Toward the end of the year, the Ahmadiya community, a small sect of Islam, came under repeated attacks throughout the country from over-zealous groups of Sunnis.

A Sunni dogmatist group, the Hifazat-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat Andolon, which claims that the Ahmadiyas are kafirs (non-Muslims) and demands that the State declare them non-Muslims, violently tried to make their way into an Ahmadiya mosque in the Tejgaon area of Dhaka city on November 21, as reported in The New Age on November 22. At least 150 people, including 20 police personnel, were hurt in clashes between the police and protesters. Local people reported that the scuffle started when a group of men led by the Imam of Rahim Metal Mosque, Maulana Mahmudul Hasan Mamatazi attempted to occupy the Ahmadiya mosque. The government provided protection to the Ahmadiya mosque this time although they did not prosecute anyone for attacking the mosque.

Later, on December 19, the anti-Ahmadiya religious bigots threatened to paralyse the country if the government did not evict Ahmadiyas from Nakhalpara mosque in Dhaka city by January 3, 2004. "We will go there (Ahmadiya mosque) on January 9 (again) and we will not return until we have driven the kafirs out of the area," The New Age quoted the Ameer of Hifazat-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat Andolon Coordination Committee, an anti- Ahmadiya alliance, to have announced at the gathering.

The government did not drive out the Ahmadiyas from their mosque although it did entertain another outrageous demand set by the orthodox mullahs: the ban on ‘all kinds of publications, sale, distribution and retention of all books and booklets on Islam published by the Ahmadiya Muslim Jamaat.‘ It capitulated to this patently unconstitutional demand that violated the basic right to freedom of religion on January 8, 2004. The administration also turned a blind eye to the reported intimidation of Ahmadiyas in other parts of the country over the period in question.

There were dozens of such incidents of repression, intimidation and exploitation of religious minorities in 2003, all duly covered by the country’s media, particularly the print media. One hardly needs to prepare a list of such incidents to prove that minority communities in Bangladesh have every reason to suffer from a sense of insecurity.

Rather, what is more important is to examine what propels the country’s Muslims in general to engage in the intimidation and oppression of smaller religious communities: is this a religious "duty" or are there vested groups who use the dominant religion to secure earthly gains by means of intimidating minorities?

If the second proposition is correct, the important thing to find out is what makes the larger Muslim community allow, or tolerate for that matter, these smaller vested groups to repress religious minorities in a country which emerged as a nation-state through years of secular democratic movements only 33 years ago? The correct formulation of any solution/s to the problem of the repression of minorities depends largely on correct answers to the questions posed above.

Not a clash of religious ideologies, yet
In the first example of minority repression cited above, in which 11 members of a Hindu family were burnt to death, the perpetrators reportedly had been intimidating the family for some time in order to appropriate property adjacent to the house in question. Reports also have it that the criminals concerned were enjoying, and still do, the patronage of the local Member of Parliament, who is an influential central leader of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

In the second instance, in which a Christian family was the victim of exploitation, the perpetrator of the crime has reportedly grabbed 4.5 acres of land belonging to the family, and the alleged criminal is an influential member of the local government.

Besides, according to media reports, the criminal belongs to the ruling BNP. In the third instance, in which the victims were Buddhist, the perpetrators of the crimes, again, encroached on the land of a vihara to set up the local office of a political party, and the party is none other than the ruling BNP.

Clearly, there is a pattern in the objectives behind the oppression of minority communities as well as in the nature of backing that perpetrators of such crimes usually receive: material interest, particularly gaining the ownership of lands, is a prime reason behind minority oppression, while the governing political party usually provides the socially required backing to the criminals concerned. This politics of patronage ensures that party cadres will remain loyal.

In the fourth instance, in which the victim is the minority Ahmadiya community, one has reason to argue that the hatred of the larger Sunni sect for the Ahmadiyas is of an ideological nature, given the fact that a section of Sunni leaders has for years been claiming that the Ahmadiyas are kafirs and demanding that government declare the community non-Muslim.

Ironically, there was reportedly a specific material interest behind the intimidation of the Ahmadiyas in Dhaka city. Janakantha wrote on November 23 that ‘a dispute over the construction of an 18-storey commercial building was behind the attack on the Ahmadiya mosque’. It is therefore evident that most incidents of exploitation/repression/intimidation of religious minorities are not inspired by religious causes, even if the perpetrators belong to the majority Muslim community.

It is also evident, from the representative cases discussed above, that the perpetrators of such crimes enjoy the support, explicit or implicit, of the major political parties, especially whichever one is in power. However, this proposition does not absolve those parties outside power, especially the mainstream ones, from the charge of exploiting minority communities. There were reports from different parts of the country, following general elections in 1996 and 2001, that members of the minority Hindu community were exposed to the wrath of losing candidates belonging to both the major contending parties – the Awami League and the BNP. Because they are perceived as being pro-AL, whenever a candidate loses in an area with a significant Hindu population, the tendency is to blame the latter for either party’s loss.

The criminal involvement of the major political parties, especially when in power, was quite evident in the findings of an earlier study entitled "Inquiry into Causes and Consequences of Deprivation of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh through the Vested Property Act". The findings of the study, carried out by a group of professional researchers led by Professor Abul Barkat of Dhaka University in 1997 remains valid today. The study reveals that as many as 925,050 Hindu households, which was 40 per cent of the total Hindu households of the country at the time, had been affected by the unjust ‘Enemy Property’ law of the Pakistan era, which continues to exist in independent Bangladesh under a different nomenclature, ‘the Vested Property law’. Although the Awami League government eventually repealed the Act in 2001, which the BNP modified in turn, the impact of the repeal has been minimal. Land returns are not taking place as called for in the law.

Out of the 925,050 households affected, 748,850 were dispossessed of agricultural land, 251,085 of homesteads, 48,455 of garden land, 79,290 of ponds, 4,405 of commercial land and 114,530 of other categories of land. The total amount of land belonging to Hindu households dispossessed through the Vested Property Act has been estimated at 1.64 million acres, which is equivalent to 53 per cent of the total land owned by Hindus and 5.3 per cent of the total land area of Bangladesh.

To whom have the dispossessed lands gone? As of 1997, the study reveals, 44.2 per cent of the individual beneficiaries belong to the Awami League, 31.7 per cent to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, 5.8 per cent to the Jatiya Party, 4.8 per cent to the Jamaat-e-Islami and one per cent to other political parties, while the researchers found it ‘difficult to ascertain the political identity of the rest’, 10.6 per cent of the beneficiaries.

Clearly, parties like the Awami League, BNP, Jatiya Party or Jamaat-e-Islami, who have so far ruled the country, find that the perpetuation of communal disparity yields material as well as ideological dividends. It is therefore unrealistic to expect a government led by any of the parties in question to ensure the equitable distribution of state protection and criminal justice between majority and minority communities.

However, the number of people grabbing property owned by minority communities is not very high compared to the size of the country’s Muslim population, which is over a hundred million out of the total of some 114 million people. Therefore, the question remains as to why the bulk of the Muslim population, which is neither communal nor beneficiaries of religious communalism, remains insensitive to the exploitation of minority communities, especially when the entire people had risen, in the 1950s and 1960s, against the communal state of Pakistan and made enormous sacrifices to make Bangladesh emerge as a secular democratic state. Are the ‘heroic’ common people of the past becoming communalised? If so, why? What is the role of the ruling elite, as well as the state machinery the elite uses to perpetuate its rule, in the regressive change in national psyche?

A non-secular elite? The Islamisation of State, politics and education

After the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, the people’s aspiration for a secular democracy apparently found adequate expression in the Constitution of the newly emerged State, formulated in 1972. It rightly proclaimed ‘secularism’ as a ‘fundamental principle’ of the State and prohibited any political party based on religious ideals.

"…No person shall have the right to form or be a member or otherwise take part in the activities of, any communal party or other association or union which in the name or on the basis of any religion has for its object, or pursues, a political purpose," said the ‘proviso’ of Article 38 of the original Constitution.

But it proved to be a false dawn. Soon, the government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman introduced what turned out to be a somewhat problematic conception of secularism both at the political and ideological levels, in running the affairs of the State. It adopted ‘the policy of equal opportunity for all religions’ and ordered citations from the holy books of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity at the start of broadcasts by state-run electronic media.

This policy can be interpreted as being inconsistent with the principles of a secular democracy, if secularism is defined as the absolute separation of Church and State, rather than neutrality toward all religions. The former definition considers ‘faith’ to be a matter of personal ‘belief’ of the individual citizen, and subsequently forbids endorsement of or aid to any religious doctrine by the State or the government of a State.

The government of the Sheikh also failed to ensure ‘separation of religion from education’, although such separation is the sine qua non for the growth as well as perpetuation of secular values in a society, without which the construction and reproduction of a secular democratic State becomes an impossible proposition.

Bangladesh’s first education commission, headed by Dr. Kudrat-e-Khuda, recommended that "instead of creating blind allegiance to the external aspects and formal rituals of religion, the curricula and textbooks should inculcate in the students a refined and well integrated system of secular ethics to produce a new generation of citizens for secular Bangladesh". The recommendation was fully compatible with the idea of secular democracy.

"Plants are fashioned by cultivation, man by education," observed French educationist Jean Jacques Rousseau. It is education, particularly primary and secondary education, that shapes the political and cultural future of a populace. A society aspiring to be democratic in its political and cultural psyche therefore needs to formulate its education curriculum in a way that helps shape the psyche of children in a democratic mould. Secularism is inherent in the concept of democracy, since democracy as an original idea had emerged in the West through political struggles against feudalism backed by religious ideologies. That which is not secular is not democratic.

But Dr. Khuda was to be disappointed, thanks primarily to the country’s non-secular elite. Earlier, the Khuda Commission circulated among the members of the most educated section of the society — vice-chancellors and professors of the universities and degree colleges, principals and professors of the medical colleges, principals of the higher secondary colleges, headmasters of the high schools, members of the associations of school and college teachers, and superintendents of madrassas, educationists, essayists, poets, novelists, playwrights, newspaper editors, top-level civil servants and Members of Parliament — a set of identical questionnaires for eliciting their opinion on the nature of education necessary for Bangladesh.

As many as 2,869 persons responded, and 74.69 per cent of the respondents said that "religious education should be an integral part of general education". The numbers speak for themselves. It appears the educated elite did not ever embrace a secular system in which faith was purely a personal matter.

The Khuda Commission gave up its secular approach, while the government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman gave in to the desire of the non-secular elite, leaving behind the democratic aspirations of those who had brought about the nation’s independence for, along with other things, a secular society and State.

Subsequently, the kind of religious syllabi that the Pakistani rulers had adopted for Muslim students at the primary and secondary levels, with a view to perpetuating Islamic cultural hegemony in society, remained almost intact, as did the religious syllabi for Hindu students. Moreover, the government adopted the policy of financially supporting hundreds of madrassas — the educational institutions that continue to reproduce a religious world-view, which is bound to ideologically strengthen, and perpetuate, a political culture devoid of secularism. Thus, the cultural stage for the pervasive growth of a non-secular political culture in society was set in the early days of Bangladesh’s independence.

The government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was overthrown by a military putsch in 1975, and all governments that followed his, with the exception of the one headed by Sheikh Hasina between 1996 and 2001, harshly criticised Mujibur Rahman for his various actions. Nevertheless, all these successive governments, including that of Sheikh Hasina, religiously followed, rather carried forward vigorously, Mujib’s programmes, giving a fillip to the process of backward movement of society in general.

To begin with, Ziaur Rahman, through a martial law proclamation in 1976, overturned a constitutional provision that prohibited use of religion for political purposes. Then came another proclamation in 1977, which replaced "secularism" as a fundamental principle of the State with "absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah" and announced that "absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah shall be the basis of all actions" of the State.

The same proclamation inserted Bismillah-ar-Rahman-ar-Rahim on the top of the Constitution. Later, all these political misdeeds, from the point of view of secular democratic values, were ‘ratified’ by the erstwhile Parliament in 1979, with Lieutenant General Ziaur Rahman at the helm of the undemocratic State machinery.

Such negative changes in State principles found full expression in the entire education system as well. The new Committee on Curricula and Syllabi under Zia’s administration stated in one of their documents: "Islam is a complete code of life, not just a sum of rituals. A Muslim has to live his personal, social, economic and international life in accordance with Islam from childhood to death. So acquiring knowledge of Islam is compulsory for all Muslim men and women." Lieutenant General HM Ershad, in 1982, drove the last nail into the coffin of secular ideals at the state level. His regime got the Constitution amended in 1998 to declare that "the state religion of the Republic is Islam…," virtually degrading the members of minority religious communities to second-class citizenry.

The height of insensitivity of the elite to the rights and dignity of religious minority communities became evident, once again, when an influential group of the elite went to court against "decentralisation of the High Court", which was a part of the autocratic constitutional amendment in question, ignoring the other part that relegated members of the minority religious communities to the status of second-grade citizens.

After the fall of General Ershad in 1990, following some eight years of movement for democracy, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of Khaleda Zia came to power through a general election in 1991. Notably, one of the central focuses of BNP’s electoral campaign was Islam — the "need of defending Islam" from "un-Islamic" political forces. The propaganda infected the electoral campaign of other power contending parties. Sheikh Hasina, chief of the Awami League, which occasionally claims itself to be a secular party, presided over her party’s entire electoral campaign wearing a hijab over her head with rosary in her hand.

The government of Khaleda Zia adopted and implemented a policy for primary education in 2000, and the first of its 22 objectives was "indoctrination of students in the loyalty to and belief in the Almighty Allah, so that the belief inspires the students in their thought and work, and helps shape their spiritual, moral, social and human values".

Indoctrination of a "belief system" of any kind is irrational in the first place. Indoctrination of any belief system obstructs believers from questioning the status quo — be it political or ideological, virtually degrading thinking human beings into non-thinking animal entities. And such a situation always helps the establishment perpetuate the existing reality, which is, in the present case, a non-secular Bangladesh.

Then came the turn of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, which came to power in 1996. The AL government formed another education commission in 1997, headed by Professor Shamsul Haque, which recognised "madrassa education as an integral part of the national education system". The commission recommended modernising the curriculum by introducing science and English but did not usher in changes in madrassa syllabi. The existing curriculum manufactures in hundreds of poor young boys a "medieval" world outlook, plagued by a deep sense of intolerance for opposing ideologies — political or religious. One of the major political agendas of the government of Sheikh Hasina was to prove, by means of patronising, both politically and financially, various Islamic organisations/institutions, that the party in no way lags behind the BNP in terms of its allegiance to Islamic ideals.

Before the last general elections in 2001, the power contending political parties shed the last vestige of secular ideals. The BNP’s election manifesto proclaimed that the party, if voted to power, "will not enact any law in contrary to Islam". The Jatiya Party, headed by HM Ershad, went a step further. "Shariah laws will be followed, existing laws will be brought in line with the principles of the Qur’an and Sunnah, special laws will be made for punishing those making derogatory remarks against God, the prophet and Shariah, while religious education will be made compulsory at all levels," said the JP’s manifesto.

The Jamaat-e-Islami announced in unambiguous terms that the party, if voted to power, "will convert the People’s Republic of Bangladesh into an Islamic Republic". Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League did not lag behind, at least, in relation to the BNP. "If returned to power," the AL announced in its election manifesto, "no law will be enacted, which will be inconsistent with the dictates of the Qur’an and Hadith". The AL’s announcement reminded some people of the historical fact that the party was born with the name of Awami Muslim League. Only the 11-party alliance, a conglomeration of the left and liberal democratic parties, pledged that they, if voted to power, would work for restoring secular ideals.

Eventually, Khaleda’s BNP, which had forged an electoral alliance with some Islamist fundamentalist parties and groups, including the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Islami Oikkya Jote, which has overtly been working to have a theocratic state in the country, won the polls.

An unhappy Hasina now complains, as reported by The New Age on September 12, 2003, that "the BNP-Jamaat came to power in the name of religion" but the coalition "has so far ignored Islam a lot". "It is an irony that the Awami League was branded as an anti-Islamic party although my government worked tirelessly to establish religion in the country," she was quoted to have said while addressing a group of mullahs at her residential office on September 11.

This brief almanac of the non-secular — rather anti-secular — legal, political, ideological and economic schemes implemented so far by the country’s political elite, assembled under various political platforms at different points of time, provides some clues to why the once secular Muslim population of Bangladesh is becoming indifferent to the exploitation of minority religious communities by politically backed vested quarters.

On a more positive note, there are still instances in which ordinary Muslims resist the repression of minorities, even when the perpetrators are law enforcers. A ‘fact file’, carried by The Daily Star on August 17, 2003 shows that local Muslims, led by a sub-inspector of Tomaltala police camp, carried out an attack on several of the homes belonging to Hindus on June 2, 2003. The attack was instigated by a highly provocative rumour deliberately spread by the concerned sub-inspector that Bishwambar Das Babajee, a priest of a local Ashram, had defecated on the Holy Koran.

At some point during the rampage, someone in the crowd asked the sub-inspector to produce evidence of the charge against Bishwambar Das. The policeman failed to do so. Eventually, it was discovered that the SI engineered the attack against Hindu families in the locality because he was refused bribes from some local Hindus the previous day. "Then the agitated (Muslim) mob, being repentant of their own misdeeds, cordoned the police camp and demanded punishment of the sub-inspector," Bishwambar was quoted to have said to a Dhaka-based human rights organisation, as reported eventually in The Daily Star.

If the Islamisation of the country’s State machinery and education system continues without the immediate political, ideological and cultural intervention of truly democratic forces, one can safely predict that the general Muslim population will be ‘indoctrinated’ to a degree that voices against intimidation, exploitation and oppression of minority communities will be subdued, if not entirely muted.

Future to be created

As events in 2003 show, religious minorities in Bangladesh are exploited in multiple ways. Their land and their property may be appropriated at any time, their lives are never completely safe and their recourse to justice is limited. Moreover, they are always vulnerable to exploitation as politicians of various hues play the religion card to further their own agendas. As such the future of minorities in Bangladesh seems bleak.

However, the future is not merely to be predicted, it is also to be created. The construction and maintenance of a secular democratic society calls for a series of politically conscious actions at different levels, especially including education and culture; this is in addition to the obvious need for organising constant protests against the formulation and implementation of non-secular policies and programmes by the communal elite.

As regards democratic interventions at the cultural and ideological level, fighting for the formulation and implementation of secular democratic curricula remains one of the most important responsibilities. A secular and scientific education generates in children, or future citizens for that matter, a sense of demystification of the universe, which automatically encourages the questioning of all structures, processes, institutions and situations of society. And now is the time for democratic forces to take up the gigantic task, accomplishment of which could help stop oppression of the minority communities of the country. n

(Nurul Kabir is deputy editor of The New Age (daily); This chapter is from the ‘ASK Human Rights in Bangladesh 2003’ report edited by Dina Siddiqi).

References:

1. Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

2. Preliminary Report of the Bangladesh Education Commission, 1973.

3. Report of the Bangladesh Education Commission, 1974.

4. Report of the Bangladesh National Syllabi and Curricula Committee, 1977.

5. National Education Policy, 2000.

6. Report of the Education Reforms Expert Committee, 2002.

7. Report of the Education Commission, 1998.

8. Inquiry into Causes and Consequences of Deprivation of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh through the Vested Property Act, 1997, edited by Prof. Abul Barkat.

9. Election Manifesto of Bangladesh Nationalist Party, 2001.

10. Election Manifesto of Awami League, 2001.

11. Election Manifesto of Jatiya Party, 2001.

12. Election Manifesto of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh, 2001.

13. The New Age, Dhaka.

14. The Daily Star, Dhaka.

15. Janakantha, Dhaka.

16. Bhorer Kagoj, Dhaka.

 BOX1

Hindu family subjected to rape and murder

On March 8, 2003 in the village of Komarpur under Sadar thana of Bagerhat district, miscreants brutally attacked a prominent Hindu family, hacking one person to death, gang-raping three women and severely injuring several others. They also looted assets worth approximately Tk. 100,000. Before they left, they declared, "We have a Taka One Lakh contract to kill Niranjan. We didn’t get him but we left one dead."

Investigations revealed that the head of the family, Niranjan Bhattacharya, had exerted pressure on police to lodge a case against a local BNP party member, Harunur Sheikh, reportedly responsible for a 1996 murder of another Hindu man from the locality. Until Niranjan’s intervention, the case was deliberately quashed by some quarters. Niranjan and his family, who had fled their homes after the 2001 national elections, had returned only in late 2002.

They were wooed back with promises of protection from a BNP activist. The protection, it turned out, was to be in exchange for votes for their ‘patron’ in the upcoming Union Parishad (UP) elections in early 2003. The patron was elected chair of the Union Parishad. However, Harunur Sheikh also became a UP member. Soon afterward, Harun began to put pressure on Niranjan to withdraw the former’s name from the police charge sheet.

Amazingly enough, the police originally registered a case of robbery leading to unintended murder, even though evidence for intentional murder, rape and looting was plentiful. Eventually, this was rectified under pressure from activists.

Source: Sheikh Nasir Ahmed, "Komorpurey Khoon, Dhorshon O Lunthhon" in ASK Bulletin, June 2003, pp. 10-12.

 BOX2

Ahmadiya Imam killed in Jessore

On the Friday afternoon of October 31, 2003, Mohammad Shah Alam, the Imam of an Ahmadiya mosque at Raghunathpurbag under Jhikargachha upazila and several other members of the community were brutally attacked by a group of armed men. The attack took place at the mosque premises where the victims were holding discussions following jumma prayers. Shah Alam later died of his injuries.

The attackers ransacked the Imam's house as well as the doors and windows of the mosque. Shah Alam's wife filed a case against 12 persons including the Imam of a nearby mosque. It has been alleged that even though everyone is aware of the identities of the perpetrators, the authorities have made no attempt to apprehend them. Police were deployed in the village but members of the 14 Ahmadiya families in Jhikargachha reported to a BBC correspondent that they continued to receive threats cautioning them to stay away from the mosque. The perpetrators filed a false case on November 16 accusing four Ahmadiyas of a crime.

Source: http://www.independent-bangladesh.com/news/nov/02/02112003cr.htm#A2

The Daily Star, November 23, 2003.

BOX3

Ahmadiya community ostracised in Kushtia village

In late October, at the beginning of the Muslim month of Ramadan, religious extremists confined to their homes at least 70 members of 10 Ahmadiya families in Uttarbhabanipur village under Bheramara upazila, Kushtia. Reportedly, local BNP leader Jalaluddin, at a meeting at Dharampur bazaar on October 24, urged villagers to sever all ties with Ahmadiyas.

The order to ostracise the religious sect was apparently authorised on the basis of a fatwa deeming any connection with the community as against Islam. An influential local Jamaat-e-Islami leader, Maulana Abdur Razzak, leading a group of maulanas, reportedly issued the fatwa. All schools in the area have been ordered to stop teaching Ahmadiya students. In an ultimatum, some village leaders called for the death of Ahmadiyas if they did not renounce their faith by the end of Ramadan.

Some Ahmadiya families had already fled their homes earlier in the month, anticipating trouble. Those who remained were virtually trapped in their homes, fearful of venturing even for basic necessities. The families filed a general diary with Daulatpur Police Station on October 27, requesting security. The police visited the area although this appeared to have little effect on the feeling of insecurity experienced by the besieged community. The Kushtia police superintendent visited the area on November 4 and urged those who had fled their homes to return. Three senior Ahmadiya leaders from Dhaka travelled to Chilean to seek an audience with Maulana Razzak, but he declined to meet with them.

Although the ultimatum passed without any untoward occurrence, there are allegations that many families were coerced into signing documents that they would renounce their faith and convert to Sunni Islam after returning to their homes. According to reports, the intimidation worked to some extent and at least nine Ahmadiya men had agreed to ‘convert’ to Islam. It is also alleged that local BNP and JI leaders were involved in the intimidation of Ahmadiya families.

Source: Wednesday, October 29, 2003, The Daily Star.

http://www.thedailystar.net.2003/11/18/d31118011313.htm

 BOX4

Anti-Ahmadiya rally draws thousands

In one of the largest anti-Ahmadiya rallies of the year, on December 5 more than 30,000 extremists under the banner of the Khatm-e-Nabuwat Movement Coordination Committee (KNMCC) besieged an Ahmadiya mosque in Nakhalpara, Dhaka. The mob was reportedly instigated by Maulana Mahmudul Hasan Momtazi, coordinator of the Khatm-e-Nabuwat movement, and Maulana Azizul Huq of the Islamic Oikkyo Jote (IOJ). Police deployed at the site eventually fended off the attackers. The KNMCC, however, announced they would stage demonstrations against Ahmadiyas every Friday throughout December.

Notably, no one had been arrested for an earlier attack on the Nakhalpara mosque on November 21. The KNMCC president proclaimed, "If the government ignores our demands, the anti-Ahmadiya group will not be responsible for their (Ahmadiyas) fate." Maulana Huq, chair of a faction of the IOJ, called on the Prime Minister Khaleda Zia on November 29 and urged her to declare the Ahmadiyas non-Muslims.

The Daily Star on December 7, 2003 quoted, on condition of anonymity, a top IOJ leader as saying the party was committed to stepping up the movement for the declaration of Ahmadiyas as non-Muslims. Critics claim government inaction is designed to appease their coalition partners. Others have pointed out that the main opposition party, the Awami League, has not spoken out on the issue either.

 BOX5

Justice delayed: Minorities and post-election violence

Following concerted attacks on various Hindu communities, including the sexual assault and rape of women during and after national elections in October 2001, Ain O Shalish Kendra filed a writ petition with the High Court, asking the government to investigate the incidents, especially the lack of police protection for victims, and to initiate prosecution of those responsible for the violence. The court issued a Rule Nisi upon the government, which responded almost a year later with an affidavit in opposition. The case is still pending a final hearing.

To date, only one rape case from that period has been disposed of successfully. Ten-year-old Rita Rani of Bhola was raped by Dulal and Selim on October 2, 2001. Following a case filed by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (Blast), the two were sentenced to prison for life.

Source: ASK Press Release


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