Concerned with the recent attacks in Mumbai, on November 30, in Jackson Heights, Queens, the New York Bangladeshi community rallied to protest the characterization of Muslim communities as terrorists. Speakers at the rally declared that the Muslims or Islam should not be blamed for the evil activities of a few persons.

Condemning the terrorist attacks in Mumbai and the perpetrators of such heinous acts, speakers called them the enemies of humanity and Islam, and urged an international operation to eliminate the terrorists. Speakers at the rally further said that the terrorists have no religion, caste or creed, not even a nationality, and added that all Americans should not be blamed for crime of one American, nor should Christians, Jews or Blacks be blamed for the crime of a single person in their communities.

The speakers urged the crowd and all others concerned not to denigrate the whole of the Muslim community by calling the terrorists in Mumbai Islamic or Muslim terrorists. At the same time, they called on all Imams and office bearers in the Mosque Committees of America to speak out in one voice to condemn the terrorists and demand they be punished. Western societies must be informed that Islam had never been indulgent of terrorism, they declared.

One minute of silence was observed in honor of those who were killed in Mumbai during the terrorist attacks.

Some of the speakers at the rally alleged that the special forces that were trained to push the Russians out of Afghanistan were now spreading terrorism in different countries of South Asia, were involved with the Al Qaeda network, and were present in Bangladesh. They vehemently criticized the unexplained silence of the Bangladeshi Government on any efforts to apprehend the persons responsible for such evil acts. At the gathering, a demand was also made that those responsible for destroying the Balaka sculpture [the famous monument by renowned sculptor Mrinal Haque in the commercial center of Motijheel, attacked on November 29] and the sculpture of Lalan Shaa by Achin Pakhi, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, should be found and punished.

In his opening remarks, Syed Muhammed Ullah, a veteran Bangladeshi journalist and the rally’s organizer, alleged that because of the intervention of several Middle Eastern countries, the persons arrested for plotting and carrying out terrorist attacks could not be tried in Bangladesh. After detaining, processing, arresting the perpetrators of the attacks, several hundred Bangladeshis, who were working in Middle East, were deported to Dhaka. This, according to Ullah, compelled the Bangladeshi Government to retreat.