Days after an Islamist mob vandalised and set on fire the office of Bangladesh’s major English daily ‘The Daily Star’, its editor, Mahfuz Anam, said that the protestors attempted to murder the entire staff. Speaking about the incident, Anam warned that the country has entered an “era of murder”.
He added that the freedom of expression has also become a “distant dream”. “They didn’t only want to burn the building, they wanted to murder the staff of the Daily Star. We have entered an era of murder. Freedom of expression is a distant dream (in Bangladesh), now the fight to stay alive,” Anam said.
The incident happened on 18th December, after the death of a radical Islamist and the convenor of Inqilab Mancha, Sharif Osman Hadi. Hadi was shot by unindentified attacker on 12th December and was receiving medical treatment in Singapore. As soon as the news of Hadi’s death broke out, his radical supporters attacked the offices of major newspapers, Prothom Alo and The Daily Star, accusing them of biased reporting.
Several journalists and other staff members of two newspapers got trapped inside the offices of Prothom Alo and The Daily Star. The staff members remained trapped for hours before being rescued after police intervention. The Islamist mob also vandalised the ancestral house of Bangladesh’s founding president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in Dhanmondi. The Islamist mob lynched a Hindu man in Mymensingh’s Bhaluka Upazila of Bangladesh based on claims of blasphemy on 18th December. The mob beat Dipu Chandra Das to death, tied his body to a tree and set it on fire.
Bangladesh has been going through frequent internal disturbances since the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government on August 5, 2024. The marginalised Hindu minority of Bangladesh has been facing unprecedented violence and persecution since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government last year. Houses of Hindus were attacked and destroyed by Islamists following Hasina’s removal from power. The targeted attacks on Hindus have continued this year as well.
A violent revolution, which started in the garb of student protests, led to the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government in Bangladesh. Hasina was forced to flee the country and had to take shelter in India. Bloodthirsty protestors vandalised and torched her residence and demanded her repatriation to Bangladesh.
