Fundamentalist forces responsible for attack: Ahmadiyya leaders tell US ambassador

Following recent attacks on the community in Panchagarh, leaders of Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at, Bangladesh (AMJ) held communal and fundamentalist forces responsible when US Ambassador Peter Haas visited the AMJ centre in Dhaka.

Lauding PM Sheikh Hasina for immediate rehabilitation efforts to help the affected Ahmadiyya families in Panchagarh, the community leaders also pointed out that the attacks are part of a ploy to diminish communal harmony in Bangladesh. They referred to a nexus among national and foreign hands aiming to create a "Pakistan styled chaos," according to a press release signed by Ahmad Tabshir Choudhury, secretary of AMJ's public relations.

Ahmadiyya leaders told the US ambassador (on 20 March, 2023) that the attacks were an affront to the ideals of secularism and communal harmony that were the driving force behind the creation of Bangladesh - breaking away from "fundamentalist Pakistan", reads the AMJ press release.

Ahmad Tabshir also told The Daily Star that over 10 years of the Awami League government (2009 - 2018), AMJ saw a significant decline in the number of attacks that they faced during the earlier BNP-Jamaat government. From 2003 to 2006, at least 36 attacks were carried out against AMJ, he told the newspaper.

Earlier, Ahmad Tabshir had termed the remark made by BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir about the community's religious event that was attacked as "irresponsible" and "disheartening", and said it "goes against their constitutional right".

Fakhrul had said, the government allowed the Ahmadiyya community's religious event in Panchagarh, and called the congregation "controversial".

Communal attacks on the Ahmadiyya community's religious event in Panchagarh on 3 March left at least two dead and over 50 injured. The angry mob also looted around 20 houses belonging to the Ahmadiyya community located in Ahmednagar.

Basherkella - a pro-Jamaat-e-Islami Twitter account - condemned police action to stop the violence over the Ahmadiyya religious event and called for "boycotting" the community. The Ahmadiyya community has called it a "hate campaign" against them.

Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islami's Acting Secretary General Maulana ATM Masum issued a statement on 5 March, asking the government to officially declare the Ahmadiyya community "non-Muslim".