Hundreds of Bangladeshi protesters demolished buildings associated with ousted former leader Sheikh Hasina on Thursday, hours after students began demolishing the museum of her father. The home and museum of Hasina’s late father and Bangladesh’s first president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, were set on fire last year during a student-led revolution that ended Hasina’s 15-year autocratic rule.
On Wednesday night, exactly six months after Hasina flew by helicopter to her old ally India on August 5, a mob armed with hammers and metal rods began demolishing the walls of a building in the capital, Dhaka. The protests were sparked by reports that Hasina, 77, was defying an arrest warrant to face trial in Dhaka on genocide charges and appeared on Facebook broadcasts from exile.
Diggers were being used to demolish the remaining fire-blackened walls on Thursday morning. Protesters vandalized and set fire to other homes associated with Hasina across the country, including the one in Dhaka where her late husband was staying.
Pratham Alo, the largest Bengali daily, reported that a mob used a government-owned excavator to demolish a building owned by Hasina’s family in Khulna city.
Vandalized houses
In the western city of Kushtia, protesters vandalized the house of Mahbubul Alam Hanif, a leader of Hasina’s Awami League party. In Chittagong, protesters held torchlight processions and vandalized a mural of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The interim government has made no official comment on the wave of attacks, and security forces have continued to watch, allowing protesters to storm buildings. A private security guard in the neighborhood said he called the fire department more than a dozen times, fearing the fire would spread to nearby buildings filled with families.
“We have cut the power line ourselves,” said Jamal Uddin. “I don’t know when the situation will return to normal.” A shopkeeper who lives near Rahman’s former residence expressed concern about the chaos. “This vandalism is not a good sign,” he said, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals for speaking out.Â
