UNO's nod for rally lacked foresight

A committee that probed the recent attacks on Hindus in Nasirnagar upazila of Brahmanbaria found lack of foresight in the UNO's decision to give verbal approval to the rally that instigated the mayhem.

“Those who wanted and planned to carry out such violence utilised the opportunity,” said Mohammad Sakhawat Hossain, additional deputy inspector general of police of Chittagong Range and the chief of the four-member probe committee.

The committee was formed on November 1 to find out how the attacks were made the day before and the role of the administration and was asked to give recommendations as to how such incidents can be prevented in future. The investigators were told to file a report in seven days.

Sakhawat said the report was done and would be submitted in one or two days.  

About the controversial photo posted on Facebook triggering the mayhem, the committee chief said the same photo had been uploaded and shared from another account two days before the post appeared on Rasraj's account.

The account, from which the photo went viral, says the location of its owner is in Kuwait. “Our team is working to find out whether it is a fake account,” Sakhawat said.

He, however, refused to provide details of the account for the sake of investigation.

He said the mobile of Rasraj Das had been sent to a forensic lab to determine if the controversial photo was uploaded from that mobile or someone had stolen his password and uploaded that photo from another device.

The committee has also identified 15 to 20 people who led the attacks on the Hindu community.

Police have so far arrested 74 people.

The committee has 30 recommendations to prevent such incidents from happening in future.

Those include investigating all such incidents that had happened in Brahmanbaria and ensuring punishment of all criminals in those cases, taking precautions before giving permission to a rally, increasing communication between local people and police-administration officials, creating awareness among people so that they do not get instigated by fake photos and improving communication of religious leaders of different communities with the administration and police.

Asked if Rasraj uploaded the photo, he said police were investigating to find out the culprits.