Eight people have been killed in vigilante lynchings in Bangladesh sparked by rumors on social media of children being kidnapped and sacrificed as offerings for the construction of a mega-bridge, police said on Wednesday.
The victims — which include two women — were targeted by angry mobs over the rumors, spread mostly on Facebook, that said human heads were required for the massive US$3 billion project, Bangladeshi Inspector-General of Police Javed Patwary said.
“We have analyzed every single case of these eight killings. Those who were killed by lynching mobs — no one was a child kidnapper,” Patwary told reporters in Dhaka.
More than 30 other people have been attacked in connection with the rumors.
Patwary said that police stations across the country had been ordered to crack down on rumors, and at least 25 YouTube channels, 60 Facebook pages and 10 Web sites have been shut down.
However, Agence France-Presse has identified several posts still on Facebook that share the rumor.
Mob lynchings are common in Bangladesh, but the latest incidents are particularly brutal.
Local media said they started after reports circulated of a young man allegedly found carrying the severed head of a child in the northern district of Netrokona.
Among the latest victims was a single mother of two, Taslima Begum, who was beaten to death in front of a Dhaka school on Saturday last week by a mob that suspected her of being a child kidnapper, a police official told reporters.
A deaf man was also beaten to death outside the capital that day while trying to visit his daughter.
Eight people have been arrested over Begum’s murder, and at least five others detained for their role in spreading the rumor on social media, police said.
Police are so concerned about the deadly fallout in rural towns that officers are trying to counter the Web rumor using loudspeakers.
“We are building awareness about the rumor and ask people not to get panicked,” a police chief in northwestern Chapainawabganj District said.
About 6.1 million Ansar paramilitary security forces and village guards have also been asked to warn villagers, according to media reports quoting Ansar Major General Kazi Sharif Kaikobad.
Meanwhile, beggars fearful of being lynched were wearing their identity cards to prove they were not strangers to a particular area, local media reported.
The lynchings could be “a sign of people’s distrust in the existing law and order system,” said Monirul Islam, a sociology professor at Dhaka University.
However, he did not rule out the possibility that some people were deliberately trying to trigger panic or unrest in the community.
The bridge — which is set to be Bangladesh’s biggest — is being built on the Padma River, a major tributary of the Ganges.
Rumors of human sacrifices being required for a bridge in Bangladesh have surfaced before, with several people attacked in 2010 over another structure, local media said.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS