A mob of 3,000 Muslim extremists reportedly burned down a Hindu village in Bangladesh – over a supposedly blasphemous Facebook post.
According to the Dhaka Tribune, the mob ransacked at least 17 Hindu temples and set fire to 60 houses in the village of Thakurpara. The conflagration left 250 Hindus homeless. Many survivors don’t know how they will live without food and shelter in the impoverished country.
Aynal Haque and other villagers commented that many Muslims defended the Hindus during the violent onslaught, fighting off pillagers and providing shelter for many of the homeless.
Law enforcement did their best to disperse the horde with tear gas and rubber bullets. Police killed one rioter and injured five others in the resulting melee. The number of Hindus and first responders killed or wounded is unknown.
It appears someone impersonating a former resident, Titu Roy, published the Facebook post that incited the riot. Family members told investigators that Roy is illiterate and dismissed any possibility of him having a Facebook account.
“We had heard that a Facebook ID named after Titu spread rumors and caused all the tension here. But my brother cannot even read a word,” Roy’s brother, Bipul Chandra, told the media. “How can he run a Facebook ID? We think someone else opened an ID and named it after Titu.”
Roy hasn’t lived in Thakurpara for many years. He works in a garment factory in the city of Narayanganj.
Authorities are attempting to trace the IP address of the anonymous Facebook user. So far, evidence points to the Bangladeshi Islamist extremism party, Jamaat-e-Islami, for instigating the violence.
In 2012, a group of Islamic extremists incensed by a photo disrespecting the Quran razed more than a dozen local Buddhist temples to the ground. Officials later determined the main perpetrators deliberately spread a rumor that a local Buddhist man uploaded the provocative photo to Facebook.
As in the 2012 attacks, there were announcements from militant imams at nearby mosques – a common trend in recent years.
AAN Staff
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