Bangladesh protesters raze buildings linked to Hasina

Hundreds of protesters smashed down buildings connected to ousted former leader Sheikh Hasina on Thursday, hours after students with excavators began demolishing a museum to her father.The museum and former of home of Hasina’s late father, Bangladesh’s first president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, had been set on fire last year during the student-led revolution that ended her 15 years of autocratic rule.Late on Wednesday, six months to the day since Hasina fled by helicopter to old ally India on August 5, crowds carrying hammers and metal rods began beating down the walls of the building in the capital Dhaka.At least two people, accused of being members of Hasina’s Awami League, were beaten by the crowd, according to witnesses.Protests were triggered in response to reports that 77-year-old Hasina – who has defied an arrest warrant to face trial in Dhaka for massacres – would appear in a Facebook broadcast from exile.The interim government blamed Hasina for the violence."The recurrence of such incidents can be avoided only if Sheikh Hasina, against whom the government has issued warrants and who is accused of crimes against humanity, refrains from making speeches,” a government statement read. "Hasina ... insulted the people who sacrificed their lives by making irrelevant, absurd, and hateful comments.”"They can demolish a building, but not the history. History takes its revenge,” Hasina said in her speech on Wednesday.She urged the people of Bangladesh to defy the interim government, accusing them of seizing power in an unconstitutional manner.Dhaka’s foreign ministry said it had written to New Delhi demanding that Hasina be barred from making "false, fabricated, and incendiary statements” while she is their guest.On Thursday morning diggers were being used to knock down the remaining fire-blackened walls.Protesters also vandalised and torched other houses across the country that are linked to Hasina, including an arson attack on the Dhaka house of Hasina’s late husband.Prothom Alo, the largest Bengali daily, reported that crowds used government-owned excavators to smash down a building owned by Hasina’s family in the city of Khulna.In the western city of Kushtia, protesters vandalised the house of a leader of Hasina’s Awami League party, Mahbubul Alam Hanif.In Chittagong, protesters held a torch procession and smashed a mural of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.Security forces stood by, allowing protesters to storm the buildings.Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), a leading Bangladeshi human rights organisation, condemned the violence.A shopkeeper living near Rahman’s former home said he was worried at the chaos."This vandalism is not a good sign,” he said, asking not to be named as he was fearful of reprisal for speaking out.The South Asian nation of 170mn people has struggled with political strife since Hasina fled to neighbouring India in August following weeks of protests against her rule in which more than 1,000 people were killed.Led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, the interim government has struggled to maintain law and order as protests and unrest have continued.Analysts said those who rose up against Hasina last year remained worried that their movement could be undermined if she returns and her Awami League party revives.Little has changed in Bangladesh despite the interim government’s promise of reform, said Shakil Ahmed, associate professor of government and politics at Jahangirnagar University.He said the government was only "managing politics, not the economy and society” even though the recent unrest was rooted in economic and social hardships.