Reacting to BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir calling the Ahmadiyya community's recent religious event in Panchagarh “controversial”, a spokesperson of the community said such remarks “go against their constitutional right”.
“The government gave permission to hold this controversial event,” Fakhrul said at a press conference on Monday, a video of which has generated reactions among netizens on social media, UNB reported.
Ahmad Tabshir Chowdhury, a spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at, said: “First, Mirza Fakhrul puts the blame squarely on the government, saying the attack on our religious event was staged by the government to divert public attention, and now he finds it convenient to call our congregation ‘controversial'.”
Referring to Ahmadiyyas' constitutional rights, Chowdhury said: “Our religious gathering was set to be held within our premises. We have a right to hold such peaceful events.”
He said: “How can he disregard our rights by calling our congregation ‘controversial'? We didn't seek permission from the government to hold our event in a busy commercial area like Paltan in Dhaka. We rather planned to hold it within our premises, it was on our property.
“When such irresponsible remarks come directly from a major political leader like Fakhrul, we are gravely disheartened.”
He further requested all political parties to at least maintain a modicum of decency while making comments on issues involving any minority community.
Fakhrul's remark came at a time when Basherkella – a pro-Jamaat-e-Islami Twitter account – condemned police action to stop the violence over the Ahmadiyya religious event and called for “boycotting” the community. The Ahmadiyya community has called it a “hate campaign” against them.
BNP ally Jamaat-e-Islami also issued a statement blaming the Ahmadis for the clashes on March 3.
Acting Secretary General Maulana ATM Masum issued a statement on March 5, asking the government to officially declare the Ahmadiyya community “non-Muslim”.
He said: “Bangladesh is a Muslim majority country where 90% of people are Muslims. In this country, the Ahmadiyya community is committing reckless activities against Islam. The Islam-loving people will never accept it. The government's role in this regard is questionable.
“The government should resolve the Ahmadiyya crisis permanentlby paying heed to public views and also officially declaring Ahmadiyyas non-Muslim."
Long history of persecution
The Ahmadiyyas are members of a minority Muslim community who have been living in different parts of Bangladesh since the beginning of the twentieth century.
Their rituals are very similar to the other sects of Islam but the predominant Sunni Muslims and hardline Islamists are opposed to their way of saying prayers, among other issues.
They demand that the government banish the Ahmadiyyas from Islam through a formal announcement, a call first raised by Jamaat-e-Islami founder Abul Ala Maududi in 1953, leading to the slaughtering of over 2,000 Ahmadis in Lahore.
Since 1963, over a dozen Ahmadis have been killed and scores of others injured or assaulted in separate incidents across Bangladesh. Moreover, their mosques are also targeted by the Islamists.
The situation worsened in 2004 and 2005 when the BNP's coalition partners -- Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Oikyo Jote (IOJ) -- dedicated themselves to the preservation of "the finality of the prophethood" of Prophet Muhammad. They threatened the Ahmadiyya community with attacks on their mosques and campaigned for Ahmadis to be declared non-Muslim, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).
In 2013, in the face of growing demands during the Hefazat-e-Islam's movement, the government said that it could not accede to such demands as the constitution upheld religious rights.
In 2021, UN human rights experts expressed their deep concern over the lack of attention to the serious human rights violations perpetrated against Ahmadiyya Muslims in a number of countries, including Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
