Case filed over Sylhet Iskcon temple attack

Temple Principal Gaurango Brahmachari filed the case naming 35 persons and 1,000 unnamed others with Kotwali police on Saturday night following a meeting with the district administration and the police. In the case, Gaurango also claimed that the attackers had damaged properties worth Tk30 lakh, SI Fazle Azim Patwari said. The meeting organised to tame the communal strife decided that those detained over the attack would be released and the devotees of both the communities would practice restraint. Sylhet Metropolitan unit Awami League General Secretary Asad Uddin Ahmed said that they had a fruitful meeting and had been able to quell the tension. Gaurango on Saturday afternoon, however, claimed that the police were dilly-dallying over registering the case. He also threatened to go to court seeking necessary directives. He expressed resentment as the police had released some accused identified from CCTV footage. Meanwhile, the two separate probe bodies formed over the incident by the administration and the police have been asked to submit reports in one week. The committees also collected footage of the attack from the temple. According to police, Muslim devotees of different ages attacked the temple with sticks on Friday for playing devotional songs during a competition that coincided with the Jumma prayers. They also threw bricks at the temple from the road and damaged the entrance and an adjacent dental clinic. The temple authorities were asked to stop the programmes when the prayers are held, police said. Situation was calm after the police went to the spot and fired several blank shots. The incident took place only two months after a communal tension between Muslim devotees and Hindu worshippers in Gendaria area of Dhaka allegedly over grabbing the land of a temple. Moreover, Iskcon’s Dinajpur unit President Birendra Nath Roy survived a gun attack on November 30 last year while militants launched bomb and gun attack on an Iskcon temple in the district on December 10. Since last year, around a dozen Hindu priests and devotees have been killed and several others injured in attacks across the country. Some of the attacks were claimed by militants linked to Islamic State.