‘There is no law and order. And Hindus are being targeted again’

Hours after Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country on Monday following mass protests, a development professional in the capital, Dhaka, received a panicked phone call from his cousin.

Avirup Sarkar is a Bangladeshi Hindu, living in a country that is 90% Muslim. His widowed cousin lives in a sprawling joint family house in a mixed neighbourhood in Netrokona, a district crisscrossed by rivers, about 100km (62 miles) north from Dhaka.

“She sounded terrified. She said the house had been attacked and plundered by a mob,” Mr Sarkar, a social protection specialist, told me on the phone from Dhaka.

His cousin said the mob of about 100 people, armed with sticks, stormed the house, smashing furniture, TV, bathroom fittings and doors. Before leaving, they took all the cash and jewellery. They didn’t assault any of the 18-odd residents, including half-a-dozen children belonging to seven families, that lived there.

“You people are descendants of the Awami League! This country is in a bad shape because of you. You should leave the country,” the mob shouted at the residents before leaving with the loot.

Mr Sarkar told me that he was shocked, but not entirely surprised by the incident. Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, he says, are largely viewed as supporters of Sheikh Hasina’s secular Awami League party and are often attacked by rivals in a country where Islam is the state religion.

After Ms Hasina fled the country, social media was flooded with reports of Hindu properties and temples being attacked. India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told parliament on Tuesday: “What was particularly worrying was that minorities, their businesses and temples also came under attack at multiple locations. The full extent of this is still not clear.”

However, young Muslim groups were also protecting Hindu homes and shrines to prevent further vandalism.

“Bangladeshi Hindus are an easy target,” Mr Sarkar told me. “Every time the Awami League loses power, they are attacked.”

This was not the first time his cousin’s house was attacked, Mr Sarkar says. Minorities in Bangladesh were targeted in 1992 after a Hindu mob tore down the Babri mosque in the Indian city of Ayodhya. Mr Sarkar’s sister’s home was ransacked by a mob.

There have been many religious attacks on Hindus in the following decades. A Bangladeshi human rights group, Ain o Salish Kendra, reported at least 3,679 attacks on the Hindu community between January 2013 and September 2021, including vandalism, arson and targeted violence.

In 2021, following mob attacks on Hindu minority households and temples in Bangladesh during and after Durga Puja, the country’s biggest Hindu festival, rights group Amnesty International said: “Such repeated attacks against individuals, communal violence and destruction of the homes and places of worship of minorities in Bangladesh over the years show that the state has failed in its duty to protect minorities.”

On Monday, other members of Mr Sarkar’s family also faced the prospect of violence. His parents’ home in Kishoreganj, 120km from Dhaka, was spared because “we are a well-known family in the neighbourhood and knew everyone”.

Mr Sarkar says his mother, who runs a local school, received a phone call from her business partner, saying that people were making lists of properties to attack.

The partner then said, “Your name is not on the list. But please be careful.”

Later, Mr Sarkar’s father, who had locked in the family, saw a small crowd congregating outside their iron gate.

“My father heard someone coming up to the crowd and telling them, ‘Don’t do anything here, not here’. The mob dispersed.”

But some distance away, in the Nogua area of Kishoreganj, reports emerged of Hindu households being looted.

“I heard 20-25 houses had been attacked there. My Hindu friend’s gold shop was broken into and the ornaments on display were looted. They could not break or take away the vault though,” Mr Sarkar said.

Some 200km north of Dhaka, Mr Sarkar’s wife’s home in a neighbourhood in Sherpur district was also on the edge. Although her house escaped attack, a mob looted a neighbouring Hindu home. The silver lining: as news of the violence spread, local Muslims rallied to form protective rings around Hindu homes and temples.

“This has also happened all over Bangladesh. Muslims have also protected Hindu properties,” says Mr Sarkar.

But this is not where things ended. As night fell on Monday, a mob began collecting outside Mr Sarkar’s 10-storey apartment building in Dhaka, where he lives with his wife and infant daughter. He reckoned they had come looking for a councillor from Awami League who lived in the same building.

“I came out on my sixth-floor balcony and saw the crowd throwing stones at the building and trying to break in. The gates were locked properly, so they couldn’t enter. Some cars in the parking lot and window panes were damaged,” Mr Sarkar says.

Back in Netrokona, Mr Sarkar’s cousin told him that the family feared more attacks. He called a friend in the army and requested that a military van patrol the neighbourhood regularly.

“This is a harrowing time. There is no law and order. And we are being targeted again,” he says.

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