A GROUP of people said to be connected to diverse Islamist parties and groups on September 5 attacked a shrine, known as Nura Paglar Darbar, at Goalanda in Rajbari. The attackers vandalised the shrine, exhumed the body of Nura Pagla, whose given name is Nurul Haque Molla, who died on August 23 and was buried in a grave on raised ground, and burnt it. The clash that ensued left at least 28 people, including five police personnel, wounded. Nineteen of the wounded were admitted to Faridpur Medical College Hospital. The deputy commissioner of Rajbari is reported to have said that several Islamist political parties such as the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Andolan Bangladesh and Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish and groups such as Iman-Aqida Protection Committee banded under Tawhidi Janata carried out the attack after Friday鈥檚 congregational prayers. The attack on the shrine is barbaric. And, the burning of the body after exhumation is barbarous. The government in a statement that day condemned the 鈥榓bhorrent desecration鈥� of the grave and the 鈥榲ile torching of the body鈥�, noting that 鈥榮uch acts of barbarity will not be tolerated under any circumstances.鈥�
The statement further says that 鈥榯he perpetrators of the heinous crime will be identified and brought to justice with the full force of law.鈥� It is only expected that the government鈥檚 action matches its words on the incident as in similar attacks on shrines in the past, especially in the changed political context after August 2024, have hardly prompted the government to lift a finger high enough to end such menace, which reeked of right wing rearing its ugly head. In such instances in the past, the government did issue statements, condemned the attacks, sounded warnings and arrested a few. But the actions altogether were not demonstrative and deterrent so as to stop the train of such attacks. In another incident in Rajshahi that day, a mob of 300 to 400 people vandalised and looted a khanqah, or a place of spiritual teaching in sufism as the term signifies, after Friday鈥檚 congregational prayers at Paba. But in both the incidents, what is there to look into if there were any failures of the administration, both civil and police. The Rajbari deputy commissioner says that tension had brewed up centring on the burial since August 23, there were protests and the attacks that took place had been announced earlier. In the Rajshahi incident, the organisers say that the police knew beforehand that attacks could be carried out.
The government should, therefore, look into the issues of administration failures, hold any errant quarters to account and deal with mob violence stringently enough to deter its recurrence.
