Anti-Ahmadiyaa elements, the members of International Khatame Nabuwat Movement, once again threatened on last Thursday that they would capture, if need be forcibly, the Amadiyya mosque in Nakhalpara on the following Friday (yesterday) to press home their demand to declare the Ahmadiyyas ‘non-Muslims’. Yesterday, as it turned out, the Anti-Ahmadiyya group did hold their demonstration at Nakhalpara near the Ahamadiya mosque and did try to whip up passion but could not quite carry out their threat of capturing the mosque thanks to preventive measures by the police. It should also be noted that in this case the local people have been playing a solitary role in maintaining order and goodwill. As for police action, however, their preventive measures did not prevent the zealots from organising their rally, fomenting religion-based hatred, instigating one community against another and trying to undermine social harmony and thus they were able almost to implement their declared programme short of actual capture of the mosque.

   Over the past few years, this very well-organised group of people under the banner of Khatame Nabuwat Movement have consistently been trying to muddy the country’s politics in the name of religion. There have been countless reports in the media on their activities. National and international human rights groups and friendly countries like the USA have persistently been asking the government to stop persecution of the Ahmadiyyas.

   Any civilised, law-abiding society would have acted firmly and would have taken tough action against these people a long time ago. But nothing of the sort has been done in this case, neither to protect the Ahmadiyyas from the vindictive attacks of these self-appointed custodians of Islam nor have any legal steps been taken to quell the agitation aimed at stirring up sectarian trouble in the country. Here the double standard of the government is glaring. The other groups of protestors are clubbed by the police and arrested, agitators of the opposition parties are dealt with mercilessly, workers demanding fair wages are fired upon but the Anti Ahamadiyya group of zealots have no problem trying to mislead public opinion the way they want. The present government has instead banned religious books of the Ahmadiyyas which has apparently emboldened the religious bigots. They are in fact blackmailing the government with the lure of the ‘Islamic’ vote bank. The government’s democratic credentials faces a test on this issue.

Source: www.newagebd.com/2006/oct/07/edit.html