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A night of joy turns to nightmare

Julfikar Ali Manik
It was a day meant to be full of joy and charity. But it plunged into sadness and bitterness. A pall of gloom spread over the neighbourhood.
Ramu, with a significant Buddhist population, was all set to celebrate its Madhu
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Purnima (full moon) yesterday morning. Many of its inhabitants were busy doing last minute shopping on Saturday night, just hours before the festival of offering honey to Bhikkhus (Buddhist monks) in local temples.
Little did they know that their happy occasion would turn into a nightmare. Overnight, the festive mood turned into one of the bitterest experiences of their lifetime.
Many of their age-old temples were burnt to ashes by some fanatic groups of people within hours around Saturday midnight.
A 40-year-old college teacher of Sridhon Para at Ramu was returning home from Cox's Bazar that night. Around 9:15pm, he got a phone call from his wife who told him that she was listening to sounds of slogans outside their home with demonstrators hurling abuse against Buddhists.
"I was very surprised because such things never happened at Ramu," he told The Daily Star over the phone, requesting repeatedly not to be named fearing attack.
He received a few more calls from his friends before reaching Ramu around 9:45pm, when he saw a public gathering at Choumohni circle.
"I went to a fruit shop, bought some grapes and apples for Madhu Purnima,” he said, adding, "We've honey
at home. We prepare food and offer it before the statue of God Buddha and distribute honey among the Bhikkhus at the temple on this occasion."
The teacher said the Buddhist community in other places celebrated the occasion on Saturday. But at Ramu it was to be on Sunday, according to the calendar followed there.
At the fruit shot, he learnt form the vendor that a photo, insulting Islam, posted on a Facebook account belonging to a Buddhist youth had triggered the agitation.
"I felt very bad to hear that. We condemn any such thing. We have always had communal harmony at Ramu. So I was thinking of doing something to uphold this friendly ambiance in our area."
Himself a Buddhist, the teacher spent some time talking to friends about the issue and then went to a friend's home nearby to know a little more about what was happening.
A little later, the agitated people brought out more processions and were chanting slogans such as Naraye Takbir AllahuAkbar.
Fearing attack, the teacher did not come out of his friend's house to go home where his wife, a four-year-old boy and his mother were up through the "scariest night" yet of their lives.
He himself spent a sleepless night at his friend's form where he saw a flame engulfing a temple on Buddha
Mandir road.
"I saw the flame of fire in the area for a long time," he said, "I left my friend's house around 3:30am [Sunday] and went home."
The rest of the fearful night seemed to never end for the family. And when it ended without anything bad happening to him or his family, the teacher went out around 6:00am yesterday to see firsthand what had actually happened.
He found four Buddhist temples on the Buddha Mandir road burnt to the ground.
"Those temples are 100 to 400 years old with very rare aesthetic wooden art work," said the teacher, sobbing at one stage fearing further attack.
"At one point, I went to a 300-year-old Ramu Shima Bihar temple at my own village Marangroa, where we were supposed to go to celebrate Madhu Purnima this [Sunday] morning with my wife, child and mother.
"But I found that the temple had been reduced to ashes," he said, adding that the monks fled the area at night fearing for their lives.
Distressed and panicked by the nightmarish night, the teacher, who opened a Facebook account about a year ago, closed it yesterday.
For who knows who tags or posts him with what photo and when? He does not want to be a part of any such violence.