Narail mayhem: Police backup came a little too late

Though a mob of several hundred people thronged the Sahapara village in Narail's Lohagara upazila around 4:00pm on July 15, police reinforcement was nowhere to be seen until 11:00pm.

By then, the attacks had already taken place.

Before additional troops arrived, only around 20 policemen had to be up against hundreds of people attacking Hindu villagers, and pillaging shops and homes, even setting one on fire.

This was the situation even after the upazila nirbahi officer, an hour into the onslaughts on the village, arrived on the spot and promised additional reinforcement.

Multiple eyewitnesses, village police and law enforcers have confirmed this.

The attacks began around 4:00pm, after hundreds of people arrived at the home of Shibnath Saha, president of Sahapara's Radha-Govinda temple, in the upazila's Dighalia union.

Shibnath was asked to mete out justice for the alleged transgression of a college student named Akash Saha, who "hurt religious sentiments" through a Facebook post.

During his visit, UNO Md Azgar Ali assured the mob that the administration would take care of the matter. To appease the irate crowds, Akash's father Ashoke Saha was taken into custody.

A police official, who accompanied the UNO, said, "After we assured [the attackers] that Akash would be arrested and justice would be served, the crowd left. However, it returned after a while,"

Around 5:00pm, a rally congregated again and police dispersed it by charging batons.

Half an hour later, it came back stronger than before, and there were only 20 police personnel to handle the situation. 

"We had nothing to do. There was no way to tackle such a large rally. They were retaliating and even harassed a police officer, who did not have a name tag, calling him a Hindu," a sub-inspector of Lohagara Police Station, requesting anonymity, told The Daily Star.

"We did not have any sound grenades. We only had a few tear-gas shells… But around evening, when more people started pouring in from every direction to attack the village, we had nothing to do except leave the area.

"They were pelting us with brick chips," he said, adding that they were fearing the consequences of going on a stronger offensive.

Abu Hena Milon, officer-in-charge of the station, said they fired at least 25 rounds of live ammunition and lobbed eight tear gas shells.

Sahapara village is around eight kilometres away from the station, with no police camps in between.

Shibnath Saha said, "When the attacks began, [most] police [officers present] watched silently. We implored them to take action when the house next to ours was being vandalised. They did nothing... Additional forces came around 11:00pm."

Prabir Kumar Roy, superintendent of police in Narail, said, "It is true that police [reinforcements] took a while to reach the locality. The district police camp is 30km away. However, we had enough force to cover the area."

Meanwhile, a case was filed against around 250 unnamed people over the attacks.

Mizanur Rahman, sub-inspector of Lohagara police and investigating officer in the case, said they have identified 15-20 people from different video footages of the incident.

"We have arrested five people -- Sayeed Sheikh, Rasel Mridha, Kabir Gazi, Rezaul Sheikh and Masum Billah. They are all residents of Lohagara."

Each of them has been taken into a three-day remand.

"We are hoping to find the main instigator after questioning them during the remand."

Akash Saha was arrested on July 16 in a case filed under the Digital Security Act. He too was placed on a three-day remand.