Amidst the ongoing violence against the minority Hindu community in Bangladesh by radical Islamists, an undated video of a Muslim cleric calling for the destruction of idols has gone viral on social media.
The contentious video was shared on Twitter by a user named NilSunil (@trunills) on Saturday (October 22). The cleric, allegedly from Bangladesh, was heard as saying, “We are Muslims, we took birth to destroy idols and not build them. Cowards, I will not hang pictures or idols with these hands of mine. You must remember that I come from a community where the ideology of destroying idols runs in our blood. It is mixed in our skin.”
During a religi0us sermon, this Bangladeshi imam said, “We are born to break id0ls and it is our religi0us tradition, we should continue it. The practice of desecr@tion and vand@lism of id0ls are in our blood and a part of our religi0n. pic.twitter.com/gr6QnfTCgU
— নীলসুনীল (@trunills) October 23, 2021
The video contained the watermark of an Islamist Youtube channel named ‘Tawhid Media’, which boasts of 1.54 lakh subscribers. From its Facebook page mentioned in the YouTube channel, it can be concluded it is based in Bangladesh.
OpIndia found multiple videos of the cleric, who is known as ‘Abdur Razzak Bin Yousuf’. On searching further with keywords such as ‘idols/murti (মুর্তি)’, we stumbled upon a video that was uploaded on June 6, 2016. The said video, which is about 7 minutes long, contained the snippet of the above clip at the very start. Therefore, it can be confirmed that the video is at least 5 years old.
However, the content of the video is disturbing and gives us a glimpse of the vitriolic mindset of the radical Islamists who recently desecrated Hindu temples, killed ‘idol worshippers’ and vandalised their homes.
According to information available online, Abdur Razzak Bin Yousuf was born in northern Bangladesh, and he had obtained higher education in Islamic studies in India. He completed the Daura Hadith twice, first from Khanpur in Malda district of West Bengal and for the second time from Darul Uloom Munathbhanjan in Uttar Pradesh. At had worked as a headmaster in a Madrasa, and had appeared on Zakir Hussain’s Peace TV Bangla channel multiple times.
The Maulana known for his anti-Hindu keeps visiting India to give speeches. He had visited West Bengal in 2018 to address meetings at various places in Malda, Murshidabad, Howrah etc in the state.
Temples attacked, Hindu houses destroyed by radical Islamists in Bangladesh
The recent attacks (October 13- present) happened over the alleged incident of ‘sacrilege’ at a Puja Pandal. However,police found that the man who triggered communal violence against Hindus by placing Quran at the Durga Puja venue was Iqbal Hossain, a Muslim.The Hindu community had insisted vehemently that nobody among them had placed the Quran at the Puja Pandal and the incident has been a deliberate plan to attack the Hindu community.
For over five days, houses and temples of the Hindu community in Bangladesh have been under the attack of radical Islamists. It started on October 12 when multiple incidents of idol vandalism took place ahead of Puja. On Sunday, Islamic extremists vandalized the Durga idol of Sri Shamshaneshwar Shiva Vigraha Mandir in the Firingibazar area in Chittagong, Bangladesh. On October 14, it was reported that several other Puja pandals were vandalized.
Videos of broken idols, demolished pandals and Moorti of Maa Durga being thrown in a pond emerged on social media platforms along with other videos of attacks on Hindus. On October 16, the ISKCON temple was attacked by a 400-500 strong Muslim mob. On October 17 and October 18, the attacks continued, and houses of Hindus were vandalized. Many were reported injured, and some reported dead after the attacks. Again, a 200-year-old Jagannath temple in Noakhali was targeted the Hindu temple by Islamists before offering Jumma Namaz on Friday (October 22).
