Eid prayers held at Sholakia sans its Imam

Eid congregation was held at Sholakia, famed for the largest congregation it holds for Muslims on Eid day, without its Imam today after the bomb attack there that left four people dead.

 

Sholakia's appointed Imam Fariduddin Masud was scheduled to lead the congregation at 10:00am. Instead, Maulana Shoaib, an Imam of Kishoreganj Boro Mosjid replaced him.

 

The Eid day prayers began with the customary blank fires and was attended by tens of thousands of Muslims who had gathered there to observe the traditional rite of Kishoreganj.

 

 

Imam Fariduddin Masud had reached the Sholakia Eidgah via a helicopter before the attack carried out near the area around 9:45am. After the attack, he did not lead the Eid congregation and was flown back to Dhaka, Abu Sayem, additional superintendent of Kishoreganj police, told The Daily Star.

 

He was unharmed in the attack and reached Dhaka safely.

 

Fariduddin Masud had led an Imam group of 100,000 to declare a Fatwa against militancy using the name of Islam in January in the government's campaign against violent extremism.

 

Before and after that campaign, many individuals - secular and progressive in nature and members from the religious minority groups - were killed in covert attacks. Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent claimed responsibility of the murders.

 

But this month, it all changed when militants stormed into a restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic zone and killed off 20 hostages in a show of terrorism that shocked the world.

 

Today's attack at Sholakia in Kishoreganj, where four people died including two policemen, a woman and a suspected assailant, was carried out barely six days into the Dhaka attack.