Shia religious leaders in the port city have demanded proper security as extremists killed at least three people in two separate attacks – on a procession at Hussaini Dalan of Dhaka and a mosque in Bogra – in just a span of one month.
Today, the community representatives are set to meet the Chittagong Metropolitan Police commissioner to press home their demand for beefed up security measures.
“The law enforcers and intelligence officials contacted the local Shia community people after the attacks in Dhaka and Bogra, and assured us of providing security,” Chittagong’s top religious leader of the Shias Maulana Amzad Hossain said yesterday.
He demanded exemplary punishment to those responsible for the attacks. “We do not know who carried out the attacks but it appeared that the criminals have an aim to break the historic tradition of reigious harmony in Bangladesh.
“We never felt so insecure in the past,” said Maulana Amzad, who is the khatib of Sadarghat Imambara Mosque.
He also said that they would soon install CCTV cameras at the two Shia mosques in the port city’s Sadarghat and Halishahar areas.
“We have deployed additional police outside the Shia mosques following Thursday’s attack in Bogra,” CMP Additional Police Commissioner AKM Shahidur Rahman said.
Detectives have found that members of banned militant group Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh carried out the attack at Hussaini Dalan on October 24. On the other hand, the law enforcers are yet to unearth the mystery behind the attack on a Shia mosque in Bogra’s Shibganj on Thursday.
