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Eighteen cases filed with three police stations in Cox’s Bazar following the attacks at the Buddhist monasteries, shrines and Buddhist households at Ramu and nearby places in 2012 still remain pending trial with different courts in the tourist district.
Seven years after the mayhem, which the media later described as a ‘planned attack’, justice for the Buddhist minority community still seems a far cry.
Many justice seekers stopped discussing the issue while a few believed that only justice can heal the wounds that Muslim mobs inflicted on them in phases in reaction to the tagging of an image desecrating the Quran on the timeline of a fake Facebook account under a Buddhist male name — Uttam Kumar Barua.
The slow process of justice made the Buddhist community leaders unhappy as the government agencies have failed to identify the perpetrators.
Following the attack, Supreme Court lawyer and rights activist Jyotirmoy Barua, also a local of Ramu, began a battle for justice but at present he refused to comment on the attacks on the peace-loving Barua community.
Arup Barua Topu, the convenor of human rights defenders forum in Cox’s Bazar, also expressed his frustration over the issue and said the trials of those cases were not completed due to lack of witnesses.
He said the government reconstructed the Buddhist facilities and houses of the locals, but people cannot forget everything.
In September 29-30, 2012, a series of attacks on the Buddhist monasteries, shrines and houses of Buddhists were carried out at Ramu by frenzied mobs.
The violence later spread to Ukhia in the district and nearby Patiya in Chittagong where Buddhist monasteries, and other religious establishments were damaged and hundred-year-old manuscripts were torched.
According to the prosecution unit at the Cox’s Bazar District Court, 19 cases were filed with the police stations at Ukhia, Ramu and Teknaf in September 2012, accusing 378 people.
All but one case were filed by the police.
The case filed by a civilian complainant, Sudhanso Barua, against 38 people, was dismissed on March 3, 2015 following an application seeking disposal of the case.
Of the 18 cases, trials of 15 cases were pending with different courts of the Cox’s Bazar Sessions Court while three others were pending with the court for framing of charges.
Asked about the delayed trial processes, the district court public prosecutor Faridul Alam blamed the witnesses for not cooperating.
‘The witnesses are unwilling to testify. The situation is such that even the police could not bring any of those prosecution witnesses,’ Faridul told New Age.
Although, investigations on most of the cases were completed, the mystery behind the Facebook post has not yet been solved. It could not be confirmed who Uttam Kumar Barua was.
The government gave Tk 3 lakh to the affected family to construct the house but they spent more than the allocation.
One year later, prime minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated 12 Buddhist temples and viharas, rebuilt after the attack.
According to police officials, during primary investigation, police recorded statements of 502 witnesses under section 161 of the code of criminal procedure. Twenty three accused gave statements under Section 164 in the court, confessing their involvement in the incidents.
Law enforcers later arrested 483 people in connection with the incidents, but almost all of them were released from prison on bail.
Police found involvement of political leadership from both ruling and opposition parties, while witnesses alleged that the law enforcing agencies remained idle when the trouble had begun.
In January 2016, the then chairman of Bandarban’s Naikkhangchhari upazila, Tofail Ahmed, who is a charge-sheeted accused in two cases filed after the incident, was arrested by the Police Bureau of Investigation in association with an IT expert Tanvir Hossain Zoha during a workshop organised by the LGRD ministry in Dhaka and he spent eight months and 10 days in jail.
Tofail Ahmed was first arrested in November 2013, but he was elected upazila chairman for the second time contesting the polls from jail.
‘I was no way involved in the attack as I always maintain religious harmony in my area and even nothing had happened in Naikkhangchhari upazila on that night as I along with my people guarded the temples, but was named only for my political ideology,’ said Tofail, a leader of Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
The public prosecutor, Faridul, claimed ‘the anti-liberation force’ was behind the attack.
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http://www.newagebd.net/article/86143/buddhist-leaders-frustrated-as-no-trial-in-seven-years-of-ramu-attack