Bangladesh Turmoil Proving A Nightmare For Ahmadiyya Muslims

By Emran Hossain

(UCA News) -- Alim Ahmed Siam, a ninth-grader, has been having frequent panic attacks since an Islamist mob attacked Ahmadnagar, a village in northern Bangladesh’s Panchagarh district on Aug. 5.

The attackers beat up the men andtook their time looting every single house before setting them on fire — reducing to ashes 117 properties including homes, shops, and a mosque.

For over a month, many of the village’s 400 Ahmadiyya people sought refuge inside a religious complex nearby while some had to pitch tents under the open sky.

A dozen families, including Siam’s, continue to live on the Ahmadiyya mosque premises. They are too poor to rebuild temporary shelters and have even lost their livelihoods.

But Siam’s father, Shamim Ahmed, is more worried about his son's health.

“The panic attacks are accompanied by severe vomiting and the need to visit the toilet frequently,” he told UCA News.

The 40-year-old Ahmed is a retired army man. He was nearly 450 kilometers away from home in Jashore when the village was attacked on the very day former primeminister,Sheikh Hasina, fled the country after a violent student-led uprising.

Away from his family, Ahmed panicked and had to be hospitalized in Jashore.

He was in the southwestern Bangladeshi city to buy tools for a motor garage he proposed to start after his retirement. That dream lies shattered, he said.

He said the family survived a similar attack in March last year. One person was killed and around 200 houses and shops were damaged in Ahmadnagar and two other adjacent villages populated by Ahmadiyyas.

“I narrowly escaped death then,” said Ahmed. “And after all these sufferings, peace is not in sight. We live in constant fear of being attacked again.”

In fact, on Sept. 22, Islamists demonstrated at the Panchagarh district headquarters demanding that the Ahmadiyyas withdraw a case filed over last year’s attack.

An uneasy calm prevails in the affected villages with army patrols guarding the Ahmadiyya homes.

The law and order situation remains fragile with mobs attacking police stations after Hasina fled.

The interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus is struggling to deal with sectarian clashes and attacks against religious and ethnic minorities continuing across the country.

The overthrow of Hasina’s government has boosted Islamists who have secured a place in the interim government, indicating a political shift in the South Asian nation from center-left to right.

“Our main concern is the security of our lives and property. How long can the situation continue like this? Sooner or later, we will have to face the reality,” said Mohammad Salauddin, the imam of Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat in Panchagarh.

At least 150 Ahmadiyya families need to be fed daily after they lost everything including their livelihoods in the Aug. 5 attack, he said.

Some lost their shops while others their vehicles — the only means of transport to workplaces.

Some Ahmadiyyas tried to resume work but were threatened by Islamists. “They have been told to stop following Ahmadiyya beliefs,” Salauddin said.

Members of the Ahmadiyya sect are seen as heretics by mainstream Sunni Muslims, who are in the majority in Bangladesh.

Ahmadiyya Muslims in present-day Bangladesh trace their origins to the late 19th-century, when the country was part of British India, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). There are roughly 100,000 AhmadiyyaMuslims in Bangladesh today.

“The recent upsurge in the persecution of the Ahmadis can be understood as part of a gradual trend in Bangladesh away from the country’s secular roots toward more blending of religion and politics,” HRW noted.

Islamic radicals in Bangladesh have repeatedly demanded that the Ahmadiyya sect be declared non-Muslim. There have been repeated mob attacks on Ahmadiyya gatherings and mosques there over the past few decades.

Since 2013, when Bangladesh saw a rise in Islamic militancy, armed extremists have murdered atheists, foreigners, liberal Muslims, and religious minorities, as well as the Ahmadiyyas.

The Aug. 5 attack onAhmadnagar village wasn’t an isolated incident.

After Hasina’s overthrow, Ahmadiyya localities were reportedly attacked by mobs in Rangpur, Rajshahi, Nilphamari, Sherpur and Dhaka on Aug. 5-6.

The victims in Ahmadnagar alleged the attack on them was planned and executed with precision.

Between 4 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. on Aug. 5, they said three groups carried out the attack. “The first group came wearing white T-shirts and took money. The next group in yellow T-shirts looted the houses and the last in red T-shirts set them ablaze,” they recalled.

Panchagarh district chief Sabet Ali, however, claimed, “There is no communal tension in my area.”

He then clarified he took charge of theoffice on Sept. 12, but wasn’t yet aware “of any Ahmadiyya families living in the mosque” at Ahmadnagar.

Salauddin, the imam, said he was not surprised by the official apathy despite the ferocity of the mob attack.

“At least 22 people were injured, all hit on their heads with iron rods. With the blessing of Allah, almost all of them have recovered,” he said.

All except one. Sixteen-year-old Shahriar Rakib was put on life support at a hospital in the capital Dhaka on Sept. 26. He had undergone two surgeries after sustaining a serious head injury in the attack.

The Ahmadiyyas of Ahmadnagar can do little else but pray for his recovery. Meanwhile, Siam continues to struggle with the recurring nightmare.

“Hate attacks against Ahmadiyyas will continue,” said Ahmad Tabsir Chowdhury, a spokesperson for the beleaguered community inBangladesh.