Leaders of a minority Muslim sect in Bangladesh have accused Islamic zealots of attacking their places of worship and openly threatening their existence as a religious group, a report said today.
Mir Mubassar Ali, a leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslims in Bangladesh, said the sect's mosques and other property had come under fresh attacks by Sunni Mulim extremists earlier this week in Bangladesh's second biggest city of Chittagong, the daily Bangladesh Observer reported.
Ali said more than a hundred thousand Ahmadiyyas in Bangladesh lived under constant threat of being attacked by religious extremists from the overwhelming Sunni Muslim majority, the report said, quoting senior Ahmadiyya officials in the capital.
Recently police forced entry into Ahmadiyya mosques in Dhaka and southern Patuakhali to confiscate religious books and pamphlets earlier banned by authorities, the newspaper said.
Ahmadiyya official Maulana Abdul Awal said a vilification campaign against the sect had been stepped up in Bangladesh with the ultimate target of declaring the sect as non-Muslims.
Ahmadiyyas around the world face a constant challenge to their existence from the international Khatme Nabuyut (Last Prophet) Movement which calls them religious outcasts deserving expulsion from Islam.
Awal also claimed that the Sunni extremists felt threatened by the growing number of Ahmadiyya converts among Muslims around the world, including Europe and Africa.
The report quoting Awal as saying the fundamentalist Jamaat-I-Islami, a key member in the ruling coalition, also wants an official declaration of the Ahmadiyyas as non-Muslims, if necessary, through passing a new law in parliament.