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Bangladesh says opposition attacked Buddhists
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide...'s government is blaming Islamic beturbanned goons and opposition activists for attacks over the weekend on minority Buddhists and their temples in southern Bangladesh. "In primary investigations, we have found that organized radical Islamic groups attacked the houses and places of worship," Home Minister Mohiudddin Khan Alamgir told news hounds after a visit to the scene on Sunday. "Activists of the opposition parties were also among the attacks." Alamgir accused local opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party politician Lutfar Rahman Kajal of instigating the attack, a charge denied by the opposition politician. Hundreds of Buddhists fled their southern Bangladesh villages in the wake of attacks by Mohammedans who burned at least 10 Buddhist temples and 40 homes in anger over a Facebook photo of a burned Koran. The Buddhists started returning home Monday amid heightened security and more than 160 arrests. Mahmud Ali, a local news hound in southern Ramu where the violence occurred, said some local villagers blamed minority Rohingya Mohammedans for the violence, but the minister made no comment on this allegation. "We will find the culprits as soon as possible," he said during the visit when he talked to affected Buddhists. In another development, main opposition BNP leader  Khaleda ZiaThree-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... in a statement Monday accused the government administration of failing to protect the minority Buddhists. She said she feared that the government may use the violence as an excuse to crack down on the opposition. "There may be a well-planned ill motive behind the incidents," she said. No new violence was reported on Monday. Army soldiers, paramilitary border guards and police were deployed, and the government has banned all public gatherings in the troubled areas near the southern border with Myanmar, said Lt. Col. Jaed Hossain, a military commander who was helping to install tents for displaced Buddhists. "They are coming back. We are giving them protection," Hossain said at Merunglua village in the coastal district of Cox's Bazar on Monday. Home Minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir told news hounds in Dhaka on Monday that security officials incarcerated Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! 166 people in Cox's Bazar and neighboring Chittagong district in connection with the attacks. Posted by: Fred 2012-10-02 |
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