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| Burned house of hindu Laksmipad mandal at Fatehpur, Satkhira at 1 april 2012 |
Dhaka, Apr 20 (bdnews24.com) – Frenzy knows no religion, and so it happened in Satkhira, too. Be it the Qu'ran or the Geeta, marauding mobs consigned them to flames with equal disrespect and contempt, just as they set houses on fire of people belonging to both religions at Kaliganj in Satkhira recently.
Atrocities on people of Kaliganj area continued for two days starting Mar 31 – three days after a local newspaper reported that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was insulted in a drama, Huzur Kebla, staged by the Fatepur High School students as part of the Independence Day celebrations on Mar 27.
The mob also vandalised the school and the primary school adjacent even as classes were in progress. Then the marauders went on to flatten the Fatepur branch of Satkhira Sangskritik Parishad, a prominent platform known for its cultural activities all over Khulna division, just because rehearsal of the drama had taken place there.
In the backdrop of the facts, bdnews24.com went all the way to ground-zero and tried to look into the 'hows' and 'whys' of the scary series of events taking place on Mar 31-Apr 1.
Investigations suggested that the Satkhira district unit of the Jamaat-e-Islami was the 'motivating force' behind the excesses. In fact, it was their well-orchestrated three-day hate campaign based on a report appearing in a local daily on the drama that finally led to the mayhem.
"The drama depicted Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as a man of wanton behaviour. It was shown that Prophet Muhammad was mad for the company of women and He (Muhammad) had illicit relations with women more than one," said the report published in the daily Drishtypat on Mar 29.
But the audience and the organisers contradicted that the drama was stopped immediately after its start as some people protested its satirical exposition of a Peer, an Islamic spiritual leader, saying the character depicted in the play resembled Prophet Muhammad.
"I don't know how the drama insulted Muhammad as the dialogue could hardly be heard due to poor sound system. Moreover, it was stopped as soon as a word 'Huzur' was heard by the audience and objected to," said Saima Akter, a teenage girl who watched the drama.
Police officers investigating the incidents, Awami League, BNP and Workers' Party leaders and those who watched the play repeated the account of the girl on what actually happened during staging of the play.
"We have seen the script of the play and found no similarity with the points raised in the local daily's report. The news was completely false and doctored to mislead people," said BNP district general secretary Iftekhar Ali.
The news report, authored by Mizanur Rahman, a Jamaat-e Islami cadre, who is also Kaliganj correspondent of Drishtipat, ran completely contrary to the message of the drama, setting off an immediate unrest in Satkhira, a district inhabited by a large number of Muslims immigrating from India during the religion-based state partition in 1947.
The government has cancelled the declaration of Drishtipat, the newspaper.
The district is known to be a stronghold of Jamaat-e-Islami, as except for the last election held in 2008, the party has won all the elections in Satkhira-4 constituency, which includes the district town, from where the atrocities were signalled. In 1991 election, Jamaat won three of all the five constituencies in Satkhira out of the total 18 seats it bagged across the country.
Local journalists and politicians confirmed that Jamaat-e-Islami sent the Imam of Borobazar mosque in the district town, Mohaddes Abdul Khaleque, who is an active participant in all Jamaat activities, to Fatepur for communicating the party's command.
Khaleque, who hails from Fatepur and is a namesake of Jamaat's former district Ameer, held a meeting with reporter Mizanur, who is also a resident of a locality known as Pakistan Parra at Fatepur, a day before the news was published as the Imam was assigned the task to mislead media, they added.
The local media took Khaleque for the former Ameer and published the news only to get a rejoinder later from Jamaat stating that the information was wrong and misleading since the real Ameer had not visited the place in the last few years.
As the report appeared, Jamaat people bought several thousand copies of the newspaper and distributed those across Satkhira, requiring the newspaper owner to go for reprinting, said editor of another Satkhira's local daily, The Daily Patradut, Abul Kalam Azad.
The Satkhira unit of the Jatiya Imam Samity, comprising mostly Jamaat activists, hit the district town streets the same day and used loudspeakers to inform people that Prophet Muhammad has been insulted, quoting the report, city dwellers said.
Several pick-up vans carrying youth sporting beard and wearing Pajama and Punjabi also drove in and around Stakhira district urging people to wage a movement against 'the enemies of Islam', recollected 'Oni', a private university student.
"They (the Samity) called over my cell phone and informed me about the news. They instructed me to brief the devotees going to attend the next Juma prayers and lead them for a protest procession," said Hafez Maulana Abdul Gafur, Kaliganj president of the Jatiya Imam Samity.
Several rallies, addressed by local Jamaat leaders, were also brought out across the district.
Leaflets carrying the line "Naraye Takbir, Allahu Akbar" and the Drishtipat report were also distributed.
The next day, on Mar 30, a Friday, the same news appeared in the Daily Alorporosh, a newspaper owned by Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, while Drishtipat continued following up on the developments in the wake of protests by faithful Muslims.
After Juma prayers, thousands of people irrespective of their political leanings took to the streets to protest "the insult to Islam".
"Character of our beloved Prophet has been assassinated. Those who have done this are enemies of Islam. We are going to protest it. Aren't you going to join the protest?" said Anwar, a resident of Kaliganj, quoting the Imam of the local mosque as having said after Khutba to convince devotees to participate in the protest programme after the prayers.
Jamaat activists once again distributed photocopies of the news and the leaflets to everyone at the entrance of every mosque as people came out after saying their prayers, said Abdul Hakim Sarder, managing committee member of the Fatepur High School.
A rally was taken out on the Fatepur High School ground demanding punishment to those who showed disrespect to the Prophet. The protest gained momentum when police arrested headmaster of the school Rezwan Harun and an assistant teacher, Mita Rani Bala, on charges of assassinating Prophet Muhammad's character.
People returned home after staging demonstrations until late into the night.
Fatepur, Mar 31
Rashida Begum, elder sister of Shahinur Rahman Shahin, who adopted the drama from its main text by Abul Mansur Ahmed, a prominent litterateur of the country, was doing her morning chores when she first saw two big processions marching towards their house chanting the slogan "Naraye Takbir, Allahu Akbar".
After vandalising both primary and high schools when the classes were going on at 10am, they stormed the compound of Shahin's house, where his five brothers live in separate houses. Shahin's family is known for actively taking part in cultural activities in the area.
A mob of about 5,000 people vandalised the houses within minutes and ensured for over an hour that all the valuables were looted, forcing the residents to run for safety. Later the houses were set ablaze with patrol and five Qur'ans were also burnt.
"They are the same group that committed atrocities during 1971. Their thirst for blood is not satisfied yet," said Ziyad Ali, 65, Shahin's father who is also a Muazzin, who calls for prayer five times a day from the mosque.
The mob went ahead and vandalised and set on fire the houses of Mita Rani, Fatepur High School managing committee member Abdul Hakim and that of one Laxmipada Mandal one by one. On their way back, they vandalised the Satkhira Sangskritik Parishad.
People living in the vicinity could also not escape the fury of the mob. Their houses were also looted as the violence went for hours together. Victims said the attackers were mostly youth.
Chakdah, Apr 1
About 20 km away from Fatepur, another thousands-strong mob attacked the Hindu-dominated village Chakdah at 5pm based on a rumour that a woman of the minority community had also criticised Prophet Muhammad in the context of staging of the drama.
After looting seven houses, the attackers set those ablaze and did not leave until it was all ashes around. Only one kilometre away from India's West Bengal state, fire raged through the Hindu village until midnight.
"The attackers went on vandalising our houses until two three-wheeler vans carrying some bearded youth in traditional Muslim attire arrived with petrol," said Paresh Sarder, 40, whose house was burnt at Chakdah.
"And until the houses were completely reduced to ashes, they continued chanting 'Naraye Takbir, Allahu Akbar'," said Paresh's mother Sunity Rani, who ran into nearby bushes to take cover.
When approached with the findings for their version of the violence, Satkhira district Jamaat general secretary Nurul Huda gave a casual laugh to the suggestion of their instigation.
Another leader sitting at the Jamaat office said, "You (the reporter) simply forget that you ever visited us for our reaction. We have nothing to say."
Suspected attackers
Video footage of the processions later turning into unruly mobs that indulged in vandalism, loot and arson confirms presence of some Jamaat-e-Islami leaders.
They are:
1. Ayub Ali Gazi, 42, Jamaat-e-Islami member of Kaliganj
2. Khanpur college principal Jahangir Hossain
3. Baliyadanga Madrassa superintendent Shamsur Rahman, 60
4. Manpur Madrassa teacher Mostofa Sarwar, 38
5. Islami Chhatra Shibir cadre of Krishnapur Monjil Hossain, 28
6. Khanpur Mohila Madrassa superintendent Habibur Rahman, 45, and
7. Mohammadpur Dakhil Madrassa superintendent Ershadullah.
(Source: Police file)
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