Another 33 arrested over attacks on Hindus in Brahmanbarhia

Police in Brahmanbarhia have arrested another 33 persons for suspected involvement in the Oct 30 attack on Hindus at the district's Nasirnagar Upazila.

Superintendent of Police Mizanur Rahman said that the 33 persons have been arrested in raids at different areas of the Upazila on Friday.

The latest arrests take the number of people nabbed over the incident to 44.

Hundreds of people ransacked 15 temples and looted and vandalised more than a hundred houses of Hindus over a purported Facebook post by a 30-year-old Hindu man allegedly 'insulting Islam.'

Police detained nine persons the same day while two others were held later.

"Until Friday morning, 44 persons have been arrested in Nasirnagar," said SP Mizanur.

A purported Facebook post by one Rasraj Das, son of Jagannath Das at Haripur Union’s Harinberh village, sparked the incident, according to locals.

Police, on Oct 29, arrested Das for ‘denigrating Islam’ through his post on the social media. A court then ordered him to prison. The court later send him on remand.

On Oct 30, a protest was organised at Nasirnagar an Islamist outfit the ‘Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat.’

As the rally was being held, hundreds of men attacked temples and vandalised and looted houses in several Hindu neighbourhoods.

Several Hindu houses and temple were torched early on Friday.

Three separate probes into the violence have been started by the Police Headquarters, Brahmanbarhia police and the district administration.

In January, a music college named after the renowned composer and music teacher Ustad Alauddin Khan was vandalised in the district following the death of a madrasa student.