Thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims protest India violence

Several thousand Muslims marched from the main mosque in Bangladesh's capital on Friday to denounce India's government for allegedly inflaming tensions between Hindus and Muslims, leading to clashes that left at least 40 dead and hundreds injured.

After Friday prayers, thousands of Muslims left the Baitul Mokarram Mosque in Dhaka and joined the rally, chanting slogans against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

They threw shows at posters of Modi and burned a portrait of him. Many of the protesters carried banners saying, “Stop killing Muslims” and “Save Indian Muslims.”

Bangladeshis protest against the communal violence in New Delhi, after Friday prayers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, Feb. 28, 2020. Authorities have not said what sparked the riots, the worst communal violence in New Delhi in decades, as the the toll continued to rise. The protestors also raised slogans against the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is scheduled to visit Bangladesh in mid-March. Poster reads "Bangladeshis do not want terrorist Modi to come here." (AP PhotoAl-emrun Garjon)

The protesters also demanded that Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina cancel a plan to invite Modi to a commemoration next month of the 100th anniversary of the birth of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Rahman, Hasina's father, led a political movement that created the separate nation of Bangladesh after a nine-month war with what is now Pakistan in 1971.

“I ask the prime minister to immediately cancel Narendra Modi's invitation," Nur Hossain Kasemi of the influential Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam told the protesters. "If she fails to do so, the people of the country will be forced to take action and surround the airport. They will build resistance.”

Bangladeshis beat a poster with a caricature of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a protest against the communal violence in New Delhi, after Friday prayers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, Feb. 28, 2020. Authorities have not said what sparked the riots, the worst communal violence in New Delhi in decades, as the the toll continued to rise. The protestors also raised slogans against the visit of Modi who is scheduled to visit Bangladesh in mid-March. (AP PhotoAl-emrun Garjon)

But he asked Bangladeshi Muslims not to harm Hindus.

“I remind the Muslims of our country that we believe in harmony. We don't believe in violence. We shall not harm any non-Muslims in this country,” he said.

Tensions in India between Hindu hard-liners and Muslims protesting the Modi government's Hindu-first policies have been building for months. Violence exploded in parts of New Delhi on Sunday night, the eve of U.S. President Donald Trump's first state visit to India.

Hindus and Muslims attacked each other with guns and swords, metal rods and axes, leaving the streets where the three days of rioting occurred resembling a war zone.

Thousands of members of an Islamist group rallied in Bangladesh’s capital on Friday to protest recent violence in Sweden involving an anti-Muslim far-right group and fresh clashes at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Protesters from the conservative Islami Andolon Bangladesh group, which supports the introduction of Islamic law in the Muslim-majority secular country, carried banners and placards reading “Sweden Police, Shame, Shame!” and “Stop Brutality in Aqsa Mosque."

Many also carried the flags of Bangladesh and Palestine during a procession. Bangladesh does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel and supports the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

Muslims protest after Friday prayers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, April 22, 2022. Thousands of Muslims staged a rally against the planned Quran burnings by a right-wing group in Sweden, and to show solidarity for the Palestinian people following their recent clashes with Israeli police at Al-Aqsa Mosque. (AP PhotoMahmud Hossain Opu)

The protesters marched peacefully through streets of Dhaka outside the country’s main Baitul Mokarram Mosque following Friday’s weekly prayers.

The conservative group has in the past organized similar protests to denounce France’s president and his staunch support of secular laws that deemed caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad protected under the nation’s freedom of speech.

On Friday, Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, the third holiest site in Islam, after Palestinian youths hurled stones at a gate where they were stationed.

The renewed violence at the site, which is also sacred to Jews, came despite Israel temporarily halting Jewish visits, which are seen by the Palestinians as a provocation.

Last weekend, violence broke out in southern Sweden despite police moving a rally by a far-right group, which was planning to burn a copy of the Quran among other things, to a new location as a preventive measure.

Moulana Imtiaz Alam, leader of the Islami Andolon Bangladesh, urged the Bangladeshi government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to officially denounce such acts. He also demanded the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to raise its voice.

“We ask the OIC and the Muslim countries to play an effective role against the misery of the Muslims and defamation of the Quran,” he said. “If the Bangladesh government does not take any steps in the OIC and the United Nations, we will conclude that they are working on behalf of Israel,” he said.