Additional police deployed in Kakrail to avoid untoward situation

Staff Correspondent:

Security has been strengthened and additional police have been deployed at Kakrail to avoid any untoward situation amid increasing tension between the followers of the two Tablighi Jamaat factions.

Situation is normal till now and no incident has been reported so far, said Sohel Rana, additional deputy commissioner (Ramna zone) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police around 11:30am today (15 November).

The followers of Mohammed Zubair, imam of Kakrail Mosque, had said they would give up control of the mosque to the followers of Delhi’s Muhammad Saad Kandhalvi, the great-grandson of the Tablighi Jamat founder Muhammad Ilyas Kandhlawi today.

The followers of Zubairul made the decision on the recommendation of “the elders” in a bid to deescalate the ongoing tension between the two major groups of Tablighi Jamaat in Bangladesh, according to Ulama Mashayekh Bangladesh, a platform of Qawmi madrasah leaders across the country.

“We are taking a peaceful stance. On the recommendations of the elders, we have decided to leave the Kakrail Mosque tomorrow morning. Followers of Saad will enter the mosque then,” said Habibullah Rayhan, a follower of Zubair and coordinator of the Ulama Mashayekh’s consultative council the Nezam-e-Shura, said yesterday (14 November).