Uttar Mithachhara, a small semi-hilly village in Cox’s Bazar’s Ramu area that was once known for its groundbreaking Buddhist-Muslim relations, is now a divided locality.
The village houses the Vimukti Bibeshan Bhabna Kendra temple, featuring a 100 foot statue of Lord Buddha, which locals and tourists of all faiths used to bow to with respect.
The harmony withered away as hundreds of people attacked the shrine on September 29-30 last year after it was alleged that a photo of the holy Qur’an being burnt was posted on the Facebook profile of a Buddhist boy named Uttam Barua.
On the left of the narrow bitumen road leading to the temple from Chabagan Bazar along the Ramu-Chittagong road live some 150 Buddhist families, a locality known as Baruapara.
The majority Muslims live in the other hilly side where the Vimukti Bibeshan Bhabna Kendra temple lies, demonstrating strong Buddhist-Muslim ties. The temple is adjacent to the houses and plots owned by the Muslims.
Now no Buddhist is interested in talking to the Muslims with a smile or visits their houses to attend social occasions. Again, not a handful of Muslim customers buy anything from the Buddhist shopkeepers.
“We thank the government for helping us with rebuilding the temple; now we want a wall to protect it from others [Muslims],” Ratan Barua, 29, a drug store owner, told the Dhaka Tribune.
“Unlike before, only a few Muslim customers come,” he said, adding that Buddhists in the area were “totally devastated” by the attacks by their neighbours and outsiders.
“I am not sure whether the wound September 29 caused will heal.”
Hundreds of people attacked the temples of the Buddhists in at least 23 locations in Ramu, Ukhiya and Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar and Potia in Chittagong protesting the alleged insult to the holy Qur’an.
At least 10 temples were totally destroyed in the attacks.
Anwar Hossain, 55, a betel nut trader, said the conscious Muslims were also shocked and embarrassed by the attack on their Buddhist brothers and sisters.
“We never considered the Baruas as the Buddhists- the Muslims attended all the social functions of the Baruas and vice versa. That harmony no longer exists. It needs repair,” he said.
With the sincerest efforts of the government, the Buddhists have built more durable and attractive temples than before, but the gesture has failed to bring back the harmony fractured by the communal attacks.
Both Muslim and Buddhist leaders strongly support the restoration of the confidence and respect the two faiths had nurtured for centuries.
Rejecting the common notion that outsiders had carried out the attacks on the Baruas, the Buddhists say the majority of the attackers were local people who had a plan beforehand and that they brought in their connections from outside.
“The attackers vandalised the houses of the Buddhists, sparing the adjacent houses of the Muslims. Is it possible for the hundreds of outsiders to identify the houses of the Muslims?” Tarun Barua, the general secretary of Ramu Kendriya Shima Bihar, told the Dhaka Tribune.
He said a section of politicians from the leading parties had been involved in the “orchestrated” attacks.
Nitish Barua, another Buddhist leader, told the Dhaka Tribune that the people were headed in the direction of communalism, something never seen before in Ramu.
Local Buddhists have organised a large-scale commemoration function on the grounds in front of Lal Ching temple, which was burnt into ashes, in Srikul village, Fotekharkul union. They have invited only 12 local Muslims to the ceremony, Alak Barua, joint secretary of Ramu’s Central Shima Bihar, told the Dhaka Tribune.
Monk Satyapriyo Mohathero, principal of the Shima Bihar in Madhya Meronloya, alleged that the attacks could be linked with the attacks on Muslim Rohingyas by the Buddhists in Myanmar.
“We heard from our seniors that some people tried to provoke an attack on the Buddhists in Ramu in 1978 when the Rohingyas were attacked in Myanmar. But the attempt was not successful as the people were communal,” Mong Lha Pro Pinto, a local school teacher, told the Dhaka Tribune.
Tarun Barua, vice-president of Maitree Bihar management committee, told the Dhaka Tribune that the local leaders of the Awami League, which they voted for decades, had not stood against the attack “fearing reprisal” in the upcoming votes.
Shamim Ahsan Bhulu, a top leader of the National Awami Party in Ramu, and some local Muslims had been trying to hold meetings to restore communal harmony.
“But this is unfortunate that the response is lukewarm from both the sides,” Bhulu told the Dhaka Tribune.
“I am not sure how long it may take to bring the dented harmony back, but we have to do it,” he said.
