Jihadi mob sets fire upon Hindu village in Rangpur over rumoured Facebook post from fake account.

Facebook is turned a dangerous Islamic tool to attack minority Hindus in Bangladesh.

Jihadi attack on Hindu houses after controversial ‘anti-Islamic’ Facebook post uploaded from Rangpur. Muslim mob set fire upon 30 Hindu houses and destroyed another 20.

Atul Brahmachari | HENB | Dhaka | Nov 11, 2017:: Facebook has been turned a dangerous Jihadi tool to attack minority Hindus in Bangladesh time and again.

The controversial Facebook post being a ‘defamation of Prophet Muhammad’. that triggered the communal attack on the Hindu houses by irrate Jihadi mob in Rangpur’s Thakurpara village was uploaded somewhere in Gangachara upazila in Rangpur, according to sources at a law enforcement agency.

The user of the Facebook ID from where the controversial post was circulated was also found to have signed in for the last time from somewhere near Bangladesh Bank’s Rangpur office on Thursday night, they added.

The sources at a law enforcement agency told the Dhaka Tribune that they became sure about the locations by tracking the device used to access the Facebook account of “MD Titu.”

There were rumours that one Titu Roy, originally from Thakurpara village but currently living in Narayanganj, put up the Facebook post defaming Prophet Muhammad a few days ago.

However, an analysis of the said Facebook account from where the controversial post was published shows there is a good chance someone else might have impersonated Titu.

The Facebook account resembling Titu Roy is named “MD Titu”. The account was opened just two months back in September this year, although he had managed to make 288 friends by this time.

As the vicious consequences of the derogatory facebook post, several hundred Jihadi people gathered at Pagla Pirer Bazar, adjacent to Thakurbari village, after Juma prayers and started chanting slogans demanding immediate arrest of Titu Chandra, he said.

Around 8,000 Muslim people from nearby villages thronged the bazaar and marched towards the alleged offenders Titu Chandra Roy’s house at Thakurbari village, a Hindu-dominated village on Friday, Nov 10.

Reaching the village, the angry people torched 30 houses of the Hindu community and vandalized another 20 Hindu houses , the Additional SP (Circle A) Saifur Rahman said.

On information, police rushed in, charged baton, fired rubber bullets and lobbed teargas canisters to disperse the agitating people, leaving six people injured with bullets.

One of the injured, Hamidul Islam died while being moved to Rangpur Medical College Hospital, Saifur said.

Police have detained 100 suspects in connection with the communal attack on Hindu houses at Thakurpara village.

100 held over attack on Hindu houses

Additional Superintendent of Police (Special Branch) ABM Zakir Hossain told the media that 100 persons, mostly leaders and activists of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its affiliated student organisation Islami Chhatra Shibir, were arrested till Saturday in connection with two separate cases filed over the incident.

“Police have identified each person who were directly involved with the clash from video footage captured by police from the spot and not a single person can escape arrest,” he said.

The ASP also mentioned that they had already sent a DB team to arrest Titu Roy for getting his statement on the matter from Dhaka with the assistance of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Criminal Investigation Department, and Cyber Crime Unit.

Real Titu is ‘illiterate’

Meanwhile, family members of Titu Roy brushed aside any possibility of him operating a Facebook account, saying he is illiterate.

Titu’s younger brother Bipul Chandra told the Bangla Tribune: “Titu took loans from different NGOs and failed to repay the money. He fled from the area seven years ago over that issue. He never returned home after that. He took his wife and children to Dhaka around five years ago.”

Titu and his wife now work at a garment factory in Narayanganj’s Fatullah, he added.

“We had heard that a Facebook ID named after Titu spread rumours and caused all the tension here. But my brother cannot even read a word. How can he run a Facebook ID? We think someone else opened an ID and named it after Titu,” Bipul said.

The villagers confirmed the Dhaka Tribune that the Facebook ID of ‘MD Titu’ was the one that was used in spreading hatred against the Hindu community.

They claimed the controversial screenshot was shown to them by some some people at a local market a couple of days ago.

Nasirnagar revisited

On October 30 last year, a mob of radical Islamists in Brahmanbaria’s Nasirnagar upazila beat Rasraj Dash mercilessly and handed him over to police, alleging that he posted a morphed image of Kaba on the Facebook.

The attackers also vandalised and looted his house, and destroyed two Puja pavilions at Haripur village.

The controversial Facebook photo also sparked a series of communal attacks on the Hindu minority of the area. At least 17 temples and Puja pavilions, and over 58 houses were vandalised and looted by a mob of about 3,000 people following a rally, organised by radical Islamist groups Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat and Hefazat-e-Islam.

There were announcements from local mosques the previous day – a trend seen many times in recent years before attacks on temples and houses of Hindus and the Buddhists across the country.

Later, more houses were vandalised and torched in the area.

Police investigation later found out that the morphed photo posted from Rasraj’s Facebook account was used by the masterminds of the attacks to spread communal hatred.

In 2012, a crowd of Muslim destroyed more than a dozen Buddhist monasteries in Ramu of Cox’s Bazar following a hate campaign using a photo allegedly defaming the Quran. The investigators later found that the masterminds of the attack spread a rumour that the photo was uploaded on Facebook by a young Buddhist man from the area.

Facebook is turned a dangerous Jihadi tool to attack minorities in Bangladesh

Just not the cases of 2012 Sept – Ramu of Cox Bazar+, 2016 Oct-Nov – Nasirnagar of Brahmanbaria+ or 2017 Nov- Thakurpara in Rangpur+, the fake accounts created by cyber Jihadis in facebook platform made havoc on the Bangladesh minorities after spreading derogatory posting on Islam intentionally.

Hundreds of Hindu and Buddhist minorities were attacked by the Jihadi perpetrators on the wings of rumour from facebook.

The ‘facebook’ was turned as Jihadi’s ‘fakebook’ in Pabna’s Bonogram Bazar where 25 houses belonging to Hindus were vandalized in Nov 2013+.

In May 2014, the Hindus of Homna of Comilla were attacked and temple destroyed over an anti Islamic  facebook posting+ made by the students of Bagmara Madrasa to incite the Muslim people to attcak the minority Hindus.

As a matter of fact, Facebook has turned as a Jihadi tool in Bangladesh to destroy Hindus!

But, facebook is less concerned to restrict the fake accounts of Muslims in Bangladesh to check the Facebook Jihad in Bangladesh only to destroy the Hindus of the country.

On the other hand, the facebook account of Hindu Existence Editor, Upananda Brahmachari (my Gurudeva – my Master who initiated me in Dharma way) at https://www.facebook.com/brahmachari.upananda has been blocked by facebook+ in his identity issue.

Facebook is fanning Jihad by blocking the crusaders against Jihad too.

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__inputs from Dhaka Tribune and Pratham Alo.

__courtesy to the links used above.