Rohingya crisis sparks fear among Bangla Buddhists

Ramu, Bangladesh, Sept. 21: As thousands of Rohingya flee ethnic violence in Myanmar, Bangladesh’s small Buddhist community fears the crisis could spark a violent backlash from their Muslim neighbours.

Many Bangladeshis are angry over the treatment in Buddhist-majority Myanmar of the Rohingya Muslims.

The anger is particularly acute in the southern district of Cox’s Bazar near the border with Myanmar, where many people have close links with the Rohingyas.

But the area is also home to a sizeable Buddhist minority that has suffered hate attacks.

Authorities in Cox’s Bazar have deployed 550 extra police in Buddhist areas to prevent a repeat of religious unrest in 2012, when Muslim mobs attacked temples and Buddhist homes.

Buddhist monk Proggananda Bhikkhu vividly remembers the night a Muslim mob torched a 300-year-old temple he looks after.

He fled when between 30 and 40 Muslims broke into

his temple and began looting statues and other valuable artefacts, but he watched the violence from a nearby field.

“When the looting was over, they set fire to the temple,” he said at the Kendriya Shima Bihar temple, which had to be largely rebuilt.

Bhikkhu said that the monks had not received direct threats, but he had seen some on the internet. “People on social media are trying to portray this as a religious conflict,” he said.