Dhaka, Bangladesh – Six months after a mass rebellion toppled former Bangladesh High Minister Sheikh Hasina, a mob set the home of her overdue father and the rustic’s independence hero, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, on fireplace on Wednesday night time.
In conjunction with Rahman’s Dhanmondi 32 place of abode, protesters additionally set the houses of exiled leaders of Hasina’s occasion, the Awami League, on fireplace.
The mob amassed after Hasina delivered a fiery on-line speech on Wednesday night from exile in India, by which she referred to as on her supporters to face in opposition to the period in-between executive led via Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus.
The Dhanmondi 32 space was once additionally attacked all the way through the July-August protests in opposition to Hasina that culminated in her removing after 15 years of rule. The protests, led in large part via scholars and younger folks, started over a arguable executive task quota device and reworked into national unrest following a harsh crackdown via government, the place no less than 834 folks had been killed and 20,000 had been injured in clashes with the police.
Who was once Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and what does the Dhanmondi 32 place of abode characterize?
Hasina’s overdue father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – broadly referred to as “Bangabandhu” (Pal of Bengal) and “Mujib” – led the country’s liberation fight in opposition to Pakistan that resulted in its independence in 1971.
As the brand new country’s first president and later high minister, Rahman’s management formed the rustic’s early years. On January 24, 1975, he offered a arguable one-party state device, referred to as Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BaKSAL), which eradicated political opposition. The program gave the state entire regulate over the media; merged state, executive, and occasion purposes; and required navy team of workers, police, judges and civil servants to turn into occasion participants.
On August 15, 1975, Mujib and all different participants of his circle of relatives, aside from Hasina and her more youthful sister, Sheikh Rehana, had been assassinated all the way through an army coup at his place of abode at the Dhanmondi 32 highway in Dhaka.
On the time, Hasina and her sister, Rehana, had been in Germany. They took safe haven in India and stayed there till Hasina’s go back to Bangladesh in Might 1981. Upon her go back, she introduced the conversion of the place of abode to a museum as a memorial of the rustic’s freedom on June 10, 1981. The museum was once inaugurated on August 14, 1994, wherein time Bangladesh had a democratically elected executive after a chain of 4 navy or military-backed governments till 1990.
Hasina’s Awami League sooner or later got here to energy, defeating the incumbent Bangladesh Nationalist Birthday celebration executive of Begum Khaleda Zia.
The home held nice importance inside Bangladesh’s independence motion, and plenty of world leaders met with Rahman on this space till his assassination.
What prompted the hot assaults?
Protesters view Rahman’s space and different Awami League member homes as symbols of what they describe as years of authoritarian rule, corruption and suppression of opposition voices.
A marketing campaign on social media to demolish the Dhanmondi 32 space were mounting since Hasina was once got rid of from energy remaining yr.
On Tuesday, after BBC Bangla reported that the deposed high minister would ship an deal with in a digital match on Wednesday night time, leaders of the Scholars In opposition to Discrimination motion, a bunch at the vanguard of the marketing campaign in opposition to Hasina remaining yr, accused India of “waging struggle” in opposition to the folks of Bangladesh.
At 6:30pm (12:30 GMT) on Wednesday, the coed workforce’s chief, Hasnat Abdullah, wrote on Fb: “This night, Bangladesh shall be free of the shrine of fascism.”
In reaction, police heightened safety within the Dhanmondi 32 space.
What came about to Hasina’s circle of relatives’s space?
Via early night on Wednesday, protesters had amassed in entrance of the police barricade on the Dhanmondi 32 intersection in Dhaka. A bunch of military infantrymen in brief joined the police to take care of safety however withdrew following a short lived altercation with the protesters.
All over Sheikh Hasina’s are living speech at the Awami League’s legit Fb web page and on X, she accused the period in-between executive of unlawfully seizing energy and referred to as for resistance.
Protesters, many affiliated with the Scholars In opposition to Discrimination motion, reacted with fury, wearing sticks, hammers and different equipment and storming the home sooner than atmosphere it alight. Others introduced a crane and excavator to demolish the construction.
As quickly because the excavator started demolishing, hundreds of protesters erupted in cheers. They had been additionally chanting slogans: “Destroy the fascist stronghold, tear it down! Delhi or Dhaka? Dhaka, Dhaka! In Abu Sayeed’s Bengal, there’s no position for Hindutva.”
Abu Sayeed was once an anti-Hasina protester killed within the safety crackdown remaining July. Hindutva is the Hindu majoritarian ideology of Indian High Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Birthday celebration.
“This home is an emblem of fascism, and the fascist Hasina is making an attempt to destabilise our nation from exile. We will be able to now not go away any hint of fascism intact,” Sayed Ahmed, probably the most protesters, informed Al Jazeera.
There was once a blended response from onlookers.
“Unquestionably Hasina is to blame; folks have suffered as a result of her. However this space holds historic importance. I don’t suppose that is the fitting transfer,” Iqbal, a businessman who had travelled via motorcycle from the previous a part of town with a chum, informed Al Jazeera.
His good friend, on the other hand, stated he noticed the transfer as “fairly OK”.
Some folks had been observed taking bricks from the construction as tokens, whilst others rushed in to assemble books, furnishings, iron, damaged grilles, picket and the rest they may to find.
Requested via journalists on Thursday what steps police had taken to stop the assault on Rahman’s house, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sheikh Md Sazzat Ali stated: “We attempted. I used to be there myself overdue into the night time.”
But, thus far, no person has been arrested.
Which different structures had been focused?
An identical incidents have taken position in no less than 19 different towns around the nation since Wednesday night time, in keeping with a file via the Prothom Alo newspaper.
The ones come with the demolition of the Awami League places of work within the jap district of Cumilla and the central district of Tangail, the apartments of a number of key exiled leaders in Khulna, Noakhali and Kushtia districts, and the destruction of work of art of Rahman in quite a lot of public institutions in Sylhet and Rangpur.
No casualties had been reported because of those incidents thus far.
Awami League leaders informed Prothom Alo that two occasion participants – one among them a girl – had additionally been assaulted, however Al Jazeera may now not independently test those claims.
How have the federal government and political figures replied?
In a commentary to the media, the period in-between executive referred to as the vandalism on the space “regrettable” however attributed it to “public outrage” over Hasina’s speech from India in regards to the July rebellion.
It accused Hasina of insulting the rebellion’s “martyrs” and inciting instability.
“Her phrases have reopened the injuries of the July bloodbath, resulting in the backlash” at Dhanmondi 32, learn a commentary issued on Thursday afternoon via the place of job of the period in-between chief, Yunus.
“The federal government urges India to not permit its territory for use for destabilising Bangladesh,” it stated.
“Regulation enforcement is taking all essential steps to revive order,” it stated, including: “Criminal movements may also be thought to be in opposition to the ones attractive in incitement.”
Past due within the night on Thursday, the period in-between executive took a less attackable place in opposition to the arson the former night time. In a brand new commentary, it stated it might “firmly withstand” vandalism and was once “totally ready to give protection to the lives and belongings of voters”.
In the meantime, the federal government has additionally insisted that the prosecution of the ones chargeable for the July killings is progressing.
Shafiqur Rahman, the chief of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami occasion, which adversarial Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, stated in a Fb put up that he held Sheikh Hasina chargeable for the placement for her “incitement” via her speech.
In the meantime, Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, a senior chief of the Bangladesh Nationalist Birthday celebration, arguably the rustic’s maximum tough political occasion at the moment, stated in an match on Thursday: “We consider that some folks will have created this chaos to impede the trail of democracy within the coming days. Particularly, we will have to examine whether or not our neighbouring nation [India] has any involvement in it.”
What does this imply for the way forward for the Awami League?
As soon as Bangladesh’s maximum tough political drive, the Awami League now faces fashionable hostility.
Analysts stated the vandalism of Rahman’s place of abode alerts a powerful rejection of the occasion’s legacy via sections of the inhabitants, specifically via the scholars and younger individuals who in large part led remaining yr’s mass protests.
Rezaul Karim Rony, analyst and editor of Joban mag, informed Al Jazeera: “The home was once intended to be totally destroyed right away after the autumn of the [Awami League] regime on August 5, however it remained most commonly intact regardless of partial vandalism. Now, as Sheikh Hasina denies the rebellion and presentations no regret for the genocide whilst inciting her supporters, the folks have reacted via completing what was once left.”
He added: “Many people are vital of this step. However they will have to remember the fact that fascism in Bangladesh started with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and reached its height underneath Hasina. The Awami League’s tribal, muscle-based politics will now not be triumphant, as demonstrated via the July rebellion.”
Rony stated he may see no long term for the Awami League. “After their tarnished legacy, even management alternate gained’t make the Awami League related.”
