Mob Attacks, Vandalises Hindu Households, Businesses In Rangpur

A "third party" carried out the vandalism to divert the case and police's attention from the overnight murder of a person named Rakib Hassan, police claimed. Prothom Alo newspaper said more than a hundred members of the Hindu community live in the Daspara market area where Hassan was murdered allegedly by drug peddler Mohammad Momin over a previous dispute. Reporters found Momin's house vacant as he went into hiding while his family members feared retaliatory attacks, the newspaper said. Police said the attack took place even when the deceased youth's family said the Hindu community had nothing to do with his murder. "We have no issues with them (Hindus)," Hassan's mother Nur Jahan Begum told the local reporters. "But we are tracking down the real killers. We have also identified who have vandalised the Hindu households and shops," Rangpur's police commissioner Mohammad Majid Ali told reporters.