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Attacks on Ahmadias
No move to arrest attackers, instigators
Staff Correspondent

Although fundamentalists openly attacked a mosque of the Ahmadia sect in Nakhalpara Friday noon and caused communal disturbance, the government has done nothing to arrest the culprits till yesterday.

All it did was to deploy police in the disturbed Nakhalpara area where over 60 people including 17 cops were injured in the Friday’s attacks.

Tejgaon Police Station sources said they did not receive ‘any directives to arrest anyone’. No case or investigation has been initiated to book the attackers or the instigators who want the Ahmadias declared non-Muslims.

However, police recorded a case against unidentified persons for attacking cops on the spot.

Meanwhile, militant groups like Hifazate Khatme Nabuwat Andolan, Bangladesh brought out a demonstration in the city led by one Abdul Hannan and demanded that the Ahmadia be declared non-Muslims. The law-enforcers did not intercept the demonstration that made insinuating remarks against the Ahmadias.

The Ahmadias in Nakhalpara meanwhile remain confined to their area, specifically to their mosque in fear of further attacks. Some 60 policemen were seen guarding the place.

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is learnt to have directed the law-enforcers to ensure that no communal attacks on religious sects occur.

“We are neither involved in politics nor craving for any worldly gains. Then why are we being targeted?” Abdul Awwal, a spokesman of Ahmadia Muslim Jamaat, said.

“Our people across the country are now under attacks,” Moulana Moazzem Hossain of the Ahmadia mosque at East Nakhalpara said.

“Under the banners of Khatme Nabuwat Co-ordination Commmittee, Jaise Mustafa, Imam Sanghati Parishad, Aamra Dhakabashi, Nabi Darodi and Darade Rasul, they are now united to unleash attacks to evict us from the land,” he said.

The worst attack was made in Khulna on October 8, 1999 during Juma prayers when a time bomb planted in a mosque exploded killing seven Ahmadias and injuring 27.

“Shah Alam, a follower of the Ahmadia sect, was killed at Roghunathpur in Jhikargachha, Jessore on October 31 and his wife filed a case accusing 16 the same day. But the killers filed a false case on November 16 accusing four Ahmadias,” said another top Ahmadia leader.

Some people attacked Bakshibazar Ahmadia mosque and vandalised it on October 29, 1992.

Besides, extremists confined some 13 Ahmadia families of Bhabanipur in Kushtia since the beginning of Ramadan and thratened to kill them on the Eid day.

Bigots in Ambarnagar of Laxmipur tortured many Ahmadias and vowed to drive them away before the Eid.

The Ahmadias of Fazilpur of Feni are also under threat and found no help of the law-enforcers despite requests.

Moazzem Hossain said the main difference between them and the other Muslims is that the Ahmadias believe Imam Mahdi, who according to the Muslim faith will appear to show the way to light, has already been born and died.