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Bangladeshi Hindus celebrate festival after fresh temple attack

By Nadeem Qadir

DHAKA: Another Hindu temple was vandalised in Bangladesh as troops were deployed in force to protect the minority community during its holiest festival that began Friday, officials said.

An idol set up inside a temple for the Durga Puja festival was destroyed in the western district of Pabna, officials said. Senior government leaders rushed to the spot to assure the Hindu community, which decided to give up their celebrations.

“Everything is peaceful here now,” police officer Matiur Rahman told AFP by telephone.

He said a case was filed but there were no immediate suspects.

In another incident, leaflets in the name of an Islamist outfit were distributed in the southern district of Pirojpur urging Hindus to destroy the idols or see them destroyed by the militants.

But the incident could have a political dimension. It took place in a constitueny held by the fundamentalist Jammat-e-Islami, a controversial member of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s coalition government, and The Daily Star newspaper said two suspects arrested for distributing the leaflets were from the main opposition Awami League.

Zia’s government has declared a “state of alert” during the five-day festival, hoping to avoid accusations of discrimination against the Hindu community, which forms 12 percent of Bangladesh’s mostly Muslim 130 million people.

Bangladesh’s opposition and right-wing Hindu groups in regional power India have alleged persecution against the minority community after the coalition swept to power a year ago.

The government has denied any campaign against Hindus. Zia and other leaders met with members of the minority community as the festival got underway.

In the capital Dhaka, thousands of Hindus crowded temples in the old city Friday, celebrating the festival with drums, cymbals and conch shells.

Troops were deployed across the city’s 300 places of worship. Ahead of the celebrations, police detained more than 1,400 people “to ensure a trouble-free festival.”

Over the weekend, a temple was torched and idols destroyed in three attacks around Bangladesh.

Amnesty International said in a December report that Hindus and other religious minorities had been attacked after the general election won by Zia’s Islamist-allied coalition. But a US State Department’s 2002 International Religious Freedom Report said many reports of atrocities have not been independently verified and that Bangladeshis “generally are free to practice the religion of their choice.”

It said there was a rise in crime after Zia’s election that “increased public perceptions of the vulnerability of religious minorities.” —AFP

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