Mob attacks several Hindu households, businesses in Bangladesh

DHAKA (TIP): A Muslim spiritual leader was hacked to death for allegedly insulting Islam while shops and households owned by Hindus were vandalised in two separate mob attacks in western Kushtia and northwestern Rangpur in Bangladesh on Saturday, April 11. An irate mob attacked several Hindu households and businesses in pre-dawn hours over the death of a Muslim youth in their neighbourhood in Rangpur, about 300-odd km northwest of Dhaka. A “third party” carried out the vandalism to divert the case and police’s attention from the overnight murder of a person named Rakib Hassan, police claimed. Prothom Alo newspaper said more than a hundred members of the Hindu community live in the Daspara market area where Hassan was murdered allegedly by drug peddler Mohammad Momin over a previous dispute. Reporters found Momin’s house vacant as he went into hiding while his family members feared retaliatory attacks, the newspaper said.