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Ahmadiyyas relieved as peace restored in Sharishabari

Local administration’s initiative restored peace in Sharishabari yesterday five days after bigots launched a hate campaign on the Ahmadiyyas of the upazila.

The Ahmadiyya families resumed their daily activities yesterday following a successful meeting Tuesday night brokered by the Sharishabari Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Al Amin.

The minority community was literally confined into their houses and were barred from mixing up with other people of the area after the hatred started to engulf the area.

The local UNO played the pivotal role in the meeting at the upazila headquarters and succeeded bringing peace and calm in the area where tension was running high since an anti-Ahmadiyya rally there last Thursday.

Earlier, the zealots staged a rally provoking hatred against the beliefs of the Ahmadiyyas under the banner of ‘Ittefaqul Ulama’.

After the rally, the fanatics attacked the house of an Ahmadiyya sect believer Shamsuddin Master, assistant headmaster of Mesta High School. They forcibly snatched the teacher’s cattle, threatened eight other Ahmadiyya families of attacks and abduction and instructed them not to get out of their houses.

Provoked by the local anti-Ahmadiyya leaders’ instigating speeches, locals also enforced incarceration on the Ahmadiyyas and stopped conducting any trade of necessary commodities with the Ahmadiyyas.

Panicked Ahmadiyya children were forced to stop going to their educational institutes while the adults were barred from going to offices or looking after their agricultural farms.

After an appeal from the Ahmadiyya families and leaders of different human rights organisations, the local administration convened the meeting of Ahmadiyyas and the anti-Ahmadiyya outfit.

Six anti-Ahmadiyya leaders including key organisers Nurul Huda Abedi, who is also the principal of Sharishabari Aliya Madrasa and brother-in-law of Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh chief Abdur Rahman, Imam of local mosques Nurul Islam Dudu and Habibur Rahman Faruqi were present at the meeting.

Sharishabari Municipality Chairman Faridul Kabir Talukder came down heavily on the anti-Ahmadiyya leaders for their hate campaign against the Ahmadiyyas and asked them to stop the torment immediately.

“No-one will be spared if he attacks on followers of any sect of Islam and members of other religion here from now on,” the municipality chairman said during the meeting.

Local ward commissioner and officer-in-charge of Sharishabari Police Station were also present at the meeting.

The anti-Ahmadiyya outfit leaders promised that their men would refrain from any further attack on the Ahmadiyyas.

Source: www.thedailystar.net/2006/07/20/d60720011911.htm