In the last two months, at least two Sufi shrines have come under attack by Islamist mobs in Bangladesh. The first was on April 11, when a Pir (spiritual leader) was beaten to death by a mob of around 300-400 people in an attack on a shrine in Kushtia in western Bangladesh. Then, on May 14, a mob vandalized the centuries-old shrine of Hazrat Shah Ali Baghdadi in Mirpur, Dhaka, where they beat people up with sticks.
The Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party, was allegedly involved in the two attacks. Although it has denied the allegations, evidence points in the direct of the Jamaat, which is now the main opposition party in Bangladesh.
Following the attack on the shrine in Mirpur on May 14, police arrested three men reportedly linked to the Jamaat based on video footage. Local parliamentarian Meer Ahmad Bin Qasem Arman, who was elected in the recent February 12 general elections on a Jamaat ticket, admitted that some of those arrested worked in his election campaign. Similarly, the murder of the Pir in Kushtia was reportedly led by a former district president of Chhatra Shibir, Jamaat’s student wing.
When they target Sufis, their places of worship and practices, Islamists often claim that their attacks are carried out in the name of the “Tauhidi Janata” (monotheistic masses).
