The needle of suspicion for the orchestration of violent attacks against Durga Puja pandals in southern Bangladesh is pointing towards the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) with the intention of embarrassing the Sheikh Hasina government and stoke communal fires over the alleged desecration of the Quran in Cumilla, southeast of Dhaka.
There are more than 3,000 pandals in Bangladesh observing Durga Puja at present. (ANI Photo/Representative Image)
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
According to diplomats in Dhaka and New Delhi, there were attacks on mandaps, pandals and temples in Cumilla on October 13 afternoon after the alleged desecration of the religious text of Muslims by placing it near the feet of the idol of Devi Durga at a pandal. There are more than 3,000 pandals in Bangladesh observing Durga Puja at present.
As the news spread like wildfire through digital media, there were violent attacks on pandals in Noakhali, Chandpur, Cox’s Bazaar, areas around Chattogram, Chapainawabganj, Pabna, Moulvibazara and Kurigram. However, there were no disturbances in Dhaka, Brahmanbaria, Jashore and other major cities.
Initially, the police were slow to react but after the high commissioner of India spoke to the administration, there was heavy deployment of armed police and local enforcement agencies. Three people, including two desecration protestors, were killed in Chandpur and dozens were injured by rubber bullets in Cumilla.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
{{^usCountry}}
While Dhaka has ensured that heavy police deployment will continue till Friday, it is quite evident that communal flames were being fanned by the opposition JEI, which has had an injection of confidence after the Sunni terrorist force Taliban occupied Afghanistan. The JEI coined the slogan “ Bangladesh Banega Afghanistan” in a bid to radicalise the youth towards ultra-conservative Islam to achieve political objectives.
{{/usCountry}}
{{#usCountry}}
While Dhaka has ensured that heavy police deployment will continue till Friday, it is quite evident that communal flames were being fanned by the opposition JEI, which has had an injection of confidence after the Sunni terrorist force Taliban occupied Afghanistan. The JEI coined the slogan “ Bangladesh Banega Afghanistan” in a bid to radicalise the youth towards ultra-conservative Islam to achieve political objectives.
{{/usCountry}}
“The basic idea behind October 13 incident was to embarrass Bangladesh’s government credentials and force a reaction from India,” said a diplomat based in Dhaka. The Jamaat thrives on radicalised youth to oppose the Sheikh Hasina government and is networked with other pro-Taliban regimes in Bangladesh.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
Get the latest World News, breaking headlines and global updates from the US, UK, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and other countries. Follow major international events on Hindustan Times.
Get the latest World News, breaking headlines and global updates from the US, UK, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and other countries. Follow major international events on Hindustan Times.
