DHAKA: Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Bangladesh’s capital on Saturday to demand that followers of a tiny Muslim sect be declared infidels, in a show of force for hard-liners ahead of elections.
The Ahmadiya community, followers of a branch of Sufism that has its origins in 19th-century India, have long been persecuted in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.
Mob attacks targeting sect member were reported across the country when former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s government fell last year in a student-led revolution.
In the months since then, hard-line Islamist groups that had been stifled under Hasina’s autocratic rule have returned to the fore, in part hoping to make headway in general elections set for February.
The crowd in the heart of Dhaka on Saturday included political leaders and senior Islamic preachers from India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
