B’desh burns as protesters target homes of Awami League leaders

New Delhi: Protesters in Bangladesh targeted the houses of several leaders of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League and continued Thursday with the demolition of a memorial in Dhaka to the country’s founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

On Wednesday night, protesters rallied in front of Mujibur Rahman’s house in the capital’s Dhanmondi area, now a memorial, following a social media call for a “bulldozer procession” before Hasina’s scheduled virtual address from exile in India. The mob set the house on fire. Similar cases of arson were later reported from other parts of Bangladesh.

“They can demolish a building, but not the history... but they must also remember that history takes its revenge,” Hasina said in her address Wednesday night while her father’s home was being demolished.

An excavator was seen at work at the house continuing with the demolition.

The building in the adjacent plot which had housed the offices of several Awami League outfits was also being demolished.

The violent demonstrators also defaced murals of Mujibur Rahman. The residence of Hasina’s late husband Wajed Mian known as ‘Sudha Sadan’ on Road 5 in Dhanmondi was also set on fire by protesters late on Wednesday. Since the ousting of the Hasina-led government on August 5, Sudha Sadan had been completely vacated.

The actions in Dhaka fuelled similar destructions in other parts of Bangladesh.

Protesters also demolished the home of Hasina’s cousins Sheikh Helal Uddin and Sheikh Salauddin Jewel in Khulna City.

Thousands of people gathered around the house, chanting “Delhi or Dhaka -- Dhaka, Dhaka” and “Down

with Mujibism”.