A wrecked room at a Hindu family's house in Kornai village of Dinajpur. Jamaat-Shibir men attacked the village shortly after voting ended on Sunday. Photo: Star

As many as 1,450 Hindu families in Chehelgazi in the district have been living in fear of attacks by Jamaat-Shibir goons since the government started trying the war criminals.
Community leaders had earlier expressed their concerns to the local administration and ruling Awami League leaders. Even in the early hours of the 10th parliamentary election they informed the administration of a possible attack. But no-one allegedly paid any heed to their safety in time.
Soon after the election on Sunday, around 2,000 Jamaat-Shibir and BNP men attacked the Hindu majority localities about 12 kilometres off the district headquarters.
Local AL and community leaders have expressed their dismay at the failure of the authorities to realise how vulnerable the Hindus were during the polls.
“They have totally ignored the point of most vulnerability and taken no steps to safeguard these people from such attacks. As a result, many of these poor people have lost everything they had,” said Parimal Chakrabarty Tapan, secretary of Dinajpur unit Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Oikya Parishad.
“The attacks could have been prevented if a single military vehicle was stationed in the area,” he added.
Witnesses said first a few perpetrators armed with sticks, iron rods, machetes and Molotov cocktails had attacked the Hindu localities around 2:30pm. Ganesh Chandra Roy, 69, a poor farmer, described how he and his three brothers, who live in a cluster of houses at Schoolpara, resisted them.
“First we chased them away. But we saw a huge number of armed men approaching our village as soon as law enforcers posted at nearby polling stations left around 5:00pm,” Ganesh said in anguish.
“We immediately fled with our families and ran towards the house of an Awami League leader half a kilometre away,” Ganesh said the families returned home yesterday under police escort to recover anything, if survived the fire, from the ashes of their houses.
“It reminds me of the brutalities of 1971,” he added showing his modest house in ruins.
Around 2,000-strong Jamaat-Shibir and BNP men took nearly one and a half hours to rake through the Hindu localities, burning, smashing and looting 350 houses and 50 shops.
AL-backed Vice-Chairman Jasmine Ara Jyotsna, who lives in the vicinity, told The Daily Star as soon as she had learned about the attacks, she called the DC, the SP, the UNO and her party colleagues for help.
“Only the UNO answered my phone and told me that the entire law-enforcement agencies were busy ensuring security for the polls,” she added.
She further said when she could finally reach the deputy commissioner over phone, he immediately took initiative and asked the on-duty armed forces to intervene.
“The army reached the villages around 6:30pm when it was already too late for the innocent villagers, whose only fault was to cast votes,” said Jasmine.
Abdur Rahman, UNO of Dinajpur Sadar, said as soon as he had received the phone call, he informed the joint forces about the attacks. “I did what I had to do in this case,” he added.
Dinajpur Sadar police yesterday arrested five people in connection with the attacks. The arrestees include Abdus Samad, 66, Mobarak Hossain, 18, and Mirza Al Masud, 16.
The government has formed a three-member probe committee headed by Abu Raihan, additional district magistrate. Police have stepped up patrol in the area.