Nine Injured as Sanatan and ISKCON Devotees Clash Over Durga Puja at Thakurgaon Temple

At least nine people were injured on the morning of 1 October when followers of a local Sanatan group and ISKCON devotees clashed over the installation of Durga idols at the Sri Sri Rasik Ray Jiu temple in Thakurgaon district, Bangladesh. The temple was under Section 144 restrictions for about fifteen years after a 2009 clash that left one person dead; Durga Puja had resumed there only last year.

THAKURGAON, Bangladesh — A long-running dispute over control of the Sri Sri Rasik Ray Jiu temple at Shikdar Hat, in Auliapur union of Bhulli upazila, turned violent on Thursday, 1 October, when local Sanatan devotees and ISKCON followers fought over who would install the idols for the coming Durga Puja, Bangladeshi newspapers reported.

According to Jaijaidin, tension spread around 10 a.m. and at least nine people from both sides were injured. The paper named five injured Sanatan devotees from Kachubari and Bhatgaon villages, including Ranjit Ray, Nupur Ray, Payel Krishna Brahmachari, Basudev Chandra and Apu Sarkar, and four injured ISKCON devotees from Bhatgaon, including Jitendra Nath, Champa Rani, Dakshanath Ray and Sohag Ray. Police from Bhulli station brought the situation under control, and the paper said law and order in the area was normal by evening.

Rupali Bangladesh put the number of injured at ten and said they were admitted to the 250-bed Thakurgaon General Hospital. By its account, a group of Sanatan devotees took possession of the temple at about 8 a.m., removed several idols that ISKCON had been building and placed their own idols inside, after which the two sides clashed.

Jaijaidin gave the local Sanatan side’s version: that ISKCON devotees obstructed and attacked them when they came to install their idols, in an attempt to establish dominance over the temple. Posts by Bangladeshi devotees on Facebook described the same incident from the opposite side, as an early-morning attack on the ISKCON temple in which idols were vandalised and looted. Akincana could not independently verify either account.

Nure Alam Siddiqui, officer-in-charge of Bhulli police station, told Rupali Bangladesh that the two sides came to blows in the morning but that police had controlled the situation, and that a meeting to reconcile the parties was under way in the district commissioner’s conference room.

The temple has a long history of conflict between the two groups over its land and festivals. On 18 September 2009 a clash over control of the temple left one person dead, and Section 144 was imposed on the premises during puja for the next fifteen to sixteen years, with no Durga Puja held there. The restriction was lifted last year through a compromise brokered by the administration, and Durga Puja was celebrated in the temple grounds for the first time in sixteen years. Rupali Bangladesh reported that this year’s puja is again in doubt.

No statement from ISKCON Bangladesh or from the temple’s ISKCON leadership had appeared at the time of writing. The incident was also reported by Channel 24, Dhakatimes24, Khaborer Kagoj and Bhorer Dak.

Source: Jaijaidin; Rupali Bangladesh