The houses of four leaders, including a former mayor and a former lawmaker, of the Awami League and its affiliated organisations were attacked and vandalised on Wednesday evening.
The incidents took place after a sudden procession was brought out under the banner of banned Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student organisation of the AL, in the Dhopadighirpar area in the city on Wednesday morning.
Locals said that a group of youths attacked the residence of AL central organising secretary Shafiul Alam Chowdhury Nadel, also a former lawmaker, in a residential area under the Biman Bandar police station in the city at about 6:30pm. The house was locked during the attack, they said.
The attackers chanted slogans against the AL and Nadel during the attack and vandalised the furniture of different rooms in his house, they said.
Biman Bandar police station officer-in-charge Syed Anisur Rahman said that they inspected the spot after the incident.
‘A mob of angry students and mass people launched the attack,’ he said.
Nearly 100 youths attacked the city’s Pathantula resident of the Sylhet City Corporation’s former mayor Anwaruzzaman Chowdhury, also an AL leader, at about 7:00pm.
Apart from vandalising the furniture, windowpanes, doors and refrigerators, air coolers and CCTV cameras, the attackers looted different goods from the house, locals said.
They said that none of Anwaruzzaman’s family members had lived in the house since the fall of the AL regime on August 5, 2024.
Jalalabad police station officer-in-charge Harunur Rashid said that they inspected the scene and, according to the locals, an angry mob of students and mass people carried out the attack.
A group of miscreants attacked the house of Sylhet city unit president of Swechchhasebak League, the volunteer front of the AL, Aftab Hossain Khan, also a former councillor of ward no 7 of the
Sylhet City Corporation, in the Jalalabad area in the city and vandalised furniture in the house, locals said.
The city’s Majortila resident of former BCL leader Ruhel Ahmed, also a former councillor of ward no 32 of the SCC, was also attacked in the same evening, his neighbours said.
They said that Ruhel’s mother and sister were in the house when the house was attacked.
Sylhet Metropolitan Police additional deputy commissioner Mohammad Saiful Islam told New Age that they heard about the incidents and they were trying to identify the people involved in the attacks.
‘Seven activists of the banned BCL have so far been arrested on charges of bringing a sudden procession in the city,’ he said on Thursday.
About 20 youths under the banner of banned Bangladesh Chhatra League held the sudden procession in the Dhopadighirpar area of the city at about 7:30am on Wednesday. There was a photo of Nadel on the banner and the youths also chanted slogans in his name, locals said.
Following the incident, leaders and activists of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, the student front of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, became enraged and attacked the houses of the four leaders of the AL and its affiliated organisations, the locals alleged.
Sylhet city unit JCD president Sudip Jyoti Esh could not be reached for comment in this regard despite repeated attempts over phone.
Sylhet city BNP acting president Rezaul Hasan Kayes Lodi told New Age that he heard about the attacks.
‘We are looking into the incidents. The BNP does not believe in any violent politics. So, such kind of attacks and vandalism is not acceptable,’ he added.
