A history of repression

The Ahmadiyya community in Bangladesh has found itself a victim of attacks for over half a century. Since 1963, 13 Ahmadis have been killed. From 2000, about 100 attacks on the Ahmadiyya community have been recorded. Half of the attacks took place between 2001 and 2008. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat Bangladesh, which is the organisational name of the community, shared the information with the Dhaka Tribune.

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Also Read- A life of constant fear for the Ahmadiyyas in Bangladesh

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The organisations’s Nayeb-E-Ameer Ahmad Tabshir Choudhury told the Dhaka Tribune that the Ahmadiyya community lived in perpetual dread during the BNP and caretaker government regimes. The BNP government banned Ahmadiyya Publications in 2004 while several mosques were besieged and signboards with hostile slogans were paraded in different parts of the country, he said. However, no attacks or attempts were recorded during the caretaker government regime. There exists a pervading culture of attacking the Ahmadiyya community in Bangladesh. The trend, nurtured by anti-Ahmadiyya sermons and vilification is largely at fault here. The latest attack on the Ahmadiyya community took place on May 8, 2017 in Mymensingh. A number of madrasa students attacked an Ahmadi imam in Ishwarganj with sharp weapons. The imam survived the critical injuries inflicted upon him. The attackers were also apprehended soon after.

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Also Read- How Ahmadiyya faith found space in Bangladesh

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