ATTACKS ON BUDDHISTS Latest News 08/10/2012

Punish perpetrators irrespective of political identity: speakers

Staff Correspondent 

Nagarik Oikya holds a roundtable at the National Press Club on Saturday in the context of the arson attacks on Buddhist neighbourhoods in Cox’s Bazar. — New Age photo

Politicians, jurists, academics and representatives from the Buddhist community on Saturday demanded an unbiased investigation into the recent sectarian attack carried out in Cox’s Bazar, urging the authorities to judge the incident from a non-partisan point of view.

They said the attack on the Buddhist community was in fact an attack on the founding principles of Bangladesh and asked all to raise their voice to bring an end to the ‘culture of selective application of law’.

They were speaking at a roundtable organised by Nagarik Oikya on ‘barbaric attack on Buddhists at Ramu’ at the National Press Club in the city with its convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna in the chair. 

Buddhist monasteries, Hindu temples and households in 10 villages at Ramu upazila of Cox’s Bazar were torched by angry Muslims on the night of September 29 after a photo was posted on the social networking site Facebook that reportedly offended Islam.

Gana Forum chairman and senior jurist Kamal Hossain at the roundtable said the Ramu attack was indeed an attack on Bangladesh’s founding principles.

‘It is an attack not only on the Buddhists community, rather it is an attack on 16 crore Bangladeshis. It is an absolute disgrace to the thousands of martyrs who sacrificed their lives in 1971,’ Kamal said.

Calling on all not to do bad politics over the issue, he said, ‘It’s unfortunate that in none of such incidents in the country we have seen a fair investigation that is the main obstacle towards establishing rule of law.’

He said the two major political parties should have sat together over the issue. ‘But’, he added, ‘they have started trading blames centring the issue for petty political gains.’ 

Demanding exemplary punishment to the perpetrators of the attack, the chief abbot of the International Buddhist Monastery, Dharma Mitra Mahathero, asked how hundreds of people gathered at a place within a short period to launch the attack.

Bangladesh Supreme Court lawyer Shahdeen Malik termed the incident a criminal offence, saying ‘The culture of selective applications of law over the past decades is creating a scope for such incidents.’

‘Today those who fire the bullets are filing cases against those they injure.’

Dhaka University professor Asif Nazrul asked the conscious citizens to work hand in hand to find out the perpetrators.

‘Was the attack exclusively a communal incident? Or, were there any other political elements behind it?’ he asked.

BRAC university faculty member Pias Karim criticised the home minister for his impromptu reaction in which he blamed the opposition for the attack.