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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Army desecrates Buddhist temple, steals Buddha statue in Ramgarh

On May 22nd, 2013, Bangladesh army ransacked a newly built Buddhist temple and had stolen a statue of the Lord Buddha in a village in Ramgarh Upazila under Khagrachari district.

According to villagers, a group of army personnel from Sindukchari zone raided Mraila Karbari Para under Patachara Union at 3pm, Wednesday on 22nd May.

“The soldiers entered the Belubon Buddhist temple with their boots on, ransacked the temple and threw the monk’s robes and other belongings out onto the ground”, a villager who wished to remain unanimous for security reasons told chtnews.com.

The army has also taken away a small Buddha statue from the temple, he added.

The temple is taken care of by Ugyo Bhante from Pagal Para Buddhist temple.

After the temple incident, when the army wanted to visit the home of the Mraila Karbari, the chief of the village, the womenfolk of the village stood firmly in their way.

The army men claimed that the land on which the Jumma villagers had built the temple and their houses belonged to one Anwar, an engineer.

The women brushed aside the claim, saying: “This is our land. Our forefathers lived here. Because of repressive political situation we had to leave this place many years ago. As the situation is now slowly coming back to normal, we have rebuilt our houses to live here peacefully and permanently.”

Before leaving, the army men warned the villagers not to build houses on the said land, otherwise “we would file cases against you.”

According to the villagers, two Bengali settlers, Kalam and Saddam, from Pagla Para village accompanied the army during the action.

Anwar has been trying to capture the said land by bribing the army and the local civil administration, sources say.

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source: chtnews.com

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