Bangladesh police launch manhunt after riot over cleric’s grave

DHAKA – Bangladesh police said on Sept 6 they had launched a manhunt after hundreds of hardline Islamists desecrated the grave of a controversial cleric in an attack in which one person was killed.

Dozens of shrines have been attacked since the

dramatic fall of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina

in August 2024 as hardliners gain ground in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

However, the Sept 5 attack in central Bangladesh was a rare case of a grave being dug up and a body desecrated.

A witness said the body of cleric Nurul Haque Molla was disinterred and set on fire.

“We have started identifying the perpetrators, and none will be spared,” Rajbari district police Superintendent Md Kamrul Islam told AFP.

Sunni Islamist hardliners were said to be upset because the cleric’s gravestone resembled the Kaaba in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam.

Mr Molla, better known as “Nura Pagla”, or “Mad Nura”, had claimed to be Imam Mahdi, a messianic figure in Islam, drawing widespread criticism.

He was buried at his shrine in Rajbari after his death in August, but his burial departed from mainstream Sunni Muslim traditions, said Mr Azaz Ahmed, a local journalist.

Mr Molla’s supporters had promised to modify the grave, but members of a hardline Islamist group called the Iman-Aqida Raksha Committee stormed the shrine after afternoon prayers on Sept 5.

“Around two thousand people, armed with crowbars, hammers and sticks, stormed Nurul Haque’s shrine and desecrated the grave,” Supt Islam said.

Hospital authorities said one person was killed and about 50 injured, three of them critically, in clashes between the hardliners and Mr Molla’s supporters.

Police identified the person killed as Mr Russell Molla, 28, a shrine custodian who was not related to the cleric.

Bangladesh’s interim government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, condemned the shrine’s desecration, describing it as “inhuman and despicable”.

“The interim government is committed to upholding the rule of law and preserving the sanctity of every human life, both in life and in death,” it said in a statement.

Dr Yunus and his administration have been criticised for failing to rein in hardliners.

Human rights activist Abu Ahmed Faijul Kabir said the desecration was part of a wider pattern of increasing religious intolerance.

“We have seen attempts to prevent cultural programmes, unreasonable reactions to the recruitment of music teachers in schools, and vandalism at Sufi shrines becoming common,” Mr Kabir told AFP. AFP