DHAKA, BANGLADESH, March 31, 2021 (Daily Star): The recent spate of violence against the Hindus started with Sunday’s attack on a Brahmanbaria temple launched from a Hefajat-e-Islam procession. Members of the minority religion were targets of violence after the Qawmi madrasa-based organization unleashed havoc in many areas on Sunday during their dawn-to-dusk countrywide hartal. In Brahmanbaria on Sunday, around 200 Hefajat activists ransacked the district’s biggest temple Sree Sree Anandamayee Kali Mandir around noon when Hindu devotees were observing the Dol Purnima festival there. The attackers trashed and broke the statues of Krishna and Goddess Kali. The donation box for the temple and ornaments of statues were looted, while the artifacts used for ceremonies were ransacked and strewn about.
In Magura, some unidentified attackers set fire to a cremation ground and its adjacent temple in Astogram area under Mohammadpur upazila on Sunday night. Three rooms of the cremation ground, known locally as Shita Pagoler Ashram, were burnt to ashes, said Swapna Rani Biswas, former vice chairman of Mohammadur upazila parishad and organizing secretary of the upazila unit of Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council. In Bogura, attackers vandalized a statue of Hindu Goddess Saraswati at a temple at Tengrakhali village in Dhunot upazila early yesterday. Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad in a statement yesterday said a Hindu temple was vandalized at Bhabokhali village in Mymensingh’s Sadar upazila and a Hindu home was set on fire at Monobhuiyan Para of Chattogram’s Mirsarai upazila. These attacks took place within the past two or three days.