Bangladesh crisis: 24 burnt alive as mob sets hotel on fire; Hindu homes, temples ‘targeted’

Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and an economist, has been chosen to lead the interim government in Bangladesh on Tuesday night, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country following a violent crackdown on a student-led uprising.

BNP leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia, after being released from jailed, expressed concerns over the nationwide violence, vandalism and looting of state resources amid the student uprising, Dhaka Tribune reported.

Khaleda Zia’s reaction comes even as reports claimed that at least 24 people, including an Indonesian national, were burnt alive by a mob in Bangladesh at a starred hotel owned by a leader of Awami League party after its leader Sheikh Hasina resigned as prime minister and fled the country. The victims, mostly boarders, were burnt alive late on Monday night as the mob set afire Zabir International Hotel owned by district Awami League general secretary Shahin Chakkladar in Joshor district, news agency PTI reported.

Meanwhile, a Hindu association in Bangladesh claimed that hundreds of Hindu houses, businesses and temples have been vandalised since the ouster of Sheikh Hasina.

Hindus constitute about 8 per cent of Bangladesh’s 170 million people and have historically largely supported Hasina’s Awami League party, which identifies as largely secular, instead of the opposition bloc that includes a hardline Islamist party.

Sheikh Hasina’s resignation: Top updates

Sheikh Hasina’s plan to travel to London has hit a roadblock over some “uncertainties” and she is unlikely to move out of India for the next couple of days, media reports claimed. Hasina, who landed at the Hindon airbase on Monday in a C-130J military transport aircraft hours after resigning as the prime minister, has been shifted to an unspecified location under tight security.

Muhammad Yunus was appointed to lead Bangladesh’s interim government by President Mohammed Shahabuddin after he held meetings with student leaders and chiefs of the three military services, local media reported late, citing a statement and officials from the president’s office.

Muhammad Yunus, 84, and his Grameen Bank, a microcredit organisation, won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for work to lift millions out of poverty by granting small loans of under $100 to the rural poor of Bangladesh.

The student leaders had said they wanted Muhammad Yunus as the chief adviser to the interim government and a spokesperson for Yunus said he agreed. Yunus is in Paris for a medical procedure and is expected to return to Dhaka soon.

In a disturbing incident, doctors at Joshor General Hospital confirmed they counted 24 bodies in Zabir International Hotel, while surviving hotel staff feared more bodies could be found inside the debris.

Media reports suggested unidentified mob, opposed to the Awami League (AL) regime, set the ground floor of the hotel on fire which quickly spread to the upper floors.

There were almost identical reports from across the country where the angry mob simultaneously vandalised residences and business establishments of many Awami League leaders and activists, including its central office in Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital.

“Our state’s resources are being wasted. This country is ours; we have to build this country,” Khaleda Zia said during a meeting with Maulana Mamunul Haque, secretary general of Bangladesh Khilafat Majlis, on Tuesday.

Neighbouring India, now sheltering Sheikh Hasina after she fled on Monday from deadly protests after 15 years in power, said what was “particularly worrying was that minorities, their businesses and temples also came under attack at multiple locations”.

The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC) said 200-300 mainly Hindu homes and businesses had been vandalised since Monday, and 15-20 Hindu temples damaged. Up to 40 people have been injured though not seriously, its general secretary, Rana Dasgupta, told news agency Reuters.