CHATTOGRAM: The reports, often accompanied by grainy footage, are frequent: Hindu temples vandalised and set on fire in Bangladesh, minority Hindus targeted and killed.
Many of the attacks are real, with the mob rage serving as a warning of how Bangladesh could spiral into violence in the vacuum opened by the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina last summer. Others are forgeries, pushed by supporters of the ousted PM to discredit Bangladesh’s interim govt.
Caught between the authentic and the exaggerated, Bangladesh’s Hindus, who make up about 9% of a population that is overwhelmingly Muslim, are gripped with fear. “Smiles are rare, and businesses are struggling,” said S K Nath Shymal, president of Bangladesh National Hindu Grand Alliance in the coastal city of Chattogram, the centre of some of the worst recent tensions.
The NYT visited the sites of many of the reported attacks in Dhaka and in Chattogram, the country’s second-largest city. Hindu residents confirmed episodes of vandalism and mob violence, particularly after the arrest of a Hindu monk in Nov and the death of a Muslim lawyer during a protest by the monk’s supporters. But they also said the cases of forged or exaggerated information had muddied the real threat to them. Shymal said that all sides were “exploiting us”.
Before now, Islamic extremists were pushed to the margins by Hasina’s police state. With her gone and an unelected interim govt in place, extremists have returned more openly. In the political violence that followed her departure, hundreds of people, including several Hindus, were killed. Community leaders said the killings of the Hindus were largely related to their political affiliation, not their religion.
But tensions have increased in recent weeks with the arrest of a Hindu monk, Chinmoy Das, who was accused of denigrating Bangladesh’s flag as he protested for the protection of Hindus. The monk’s supporters gathered at the court in Chattogram during his bail hearing, clashing with police. During the unrest, a Muslim lawyer was hacked to death in unclear circumstances. Since then, mobs have arrived in neighbourhoods where Hindus live, vandalising temples and targeting homes. In court, lawyers for the monk were heckled by other lawyers and stopped from defending him, his team said.
On the outskirts of Dhaka, a family-run Hindu temple was vandalised and set on fire in the predawn hours of Dec 7. The owner, Ratan Kumar Ghosh, said the attackers had thrown flammable material into his house, which contains the temple, by removing part of its tin roof. Ghosh expressed regret that the local media had minimised the attack.
In Chattogram, the premises of three temples were vandalised recently, their gates and windows smashed with rocks. At another temple in Chattogram, it was clear that a mob attack had taken place, but accounts of the unrest were conflicting. Proloy Chakraborty, a priest, said a mob had vandalised two lion statues outside the temple gate. Titu Das, a nearby shopkeeper, said the mob had also attacked shops. Hasina put out a statement saying a “temple was burned in Chattogram.” But leaders of the Hindu community in Chattogram rejected those accounts.NYT