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| Bangladesh |
| Violence at Fatikchhari |
| 2013-04-14 |
| [Bangla Daily Star] THE bloody violence over an anti-hartal procession that the remote village of Bhujpur at Fatikcchari upazila in Chittagong saw last Thursday was as shocking as it was disquieting. Three members of the ruling Awami League were killed, over a hundred people were hurt, including coppers, and a hundred motorised vehicles were burnt during the mayhem. We condemn the mindless violence in the strongest terms. The perpetrators of the outrage, whatever their political identities, deserve the highest punishment under the law. The circumstances of the deadly mayhem are bizarre and blood-curdling. The local leaders of the ruling Awami league and their activists were learnt to have been staging a procession in which a large number of motorised-vehicle riders also participated. But when the procession was returning, someone from the local mosque raised a false alarm over the loudspeaker that the procession marchers had kidnapped a teacher of the local madrasa and that they were also going to attack the madrasa. The announcement on the mike drew a large crowd armed with sticks, knives and other lethal weapons from the nearby village including, reportedly, activists of Jamaat-Shibir and Hefajat-e-Islam who swooped on the anti-hartal marchers with vengeance. Holding procession to protest hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... is nothing new. But raising alarm and widespread panic among the public over anti-hartal demonstration leading to deadly violence and loss of life and property is quite is unprecedented. The scale, ferocity and severity of what happened at Fatikchhari should be a precious lesson for the law-enforcers. So as not to be taken by surprise in the face of a similar kind of mob madness in the future, they must mount strict vigilance and gather enough intelligence to control it effectively. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 But when the procession was returning, someone from the local mosque raised a false alarm over the loudspeaker that the procession marchers had kidnapped a teacher of the local madrasa and that they were also going to attack the madrasa. step one - burn the mosque to the ground. step two - burn the madrasa to the ground. lather, rinse, repeat |
| Posted by: Frank G 2013-04-14 11:30 |