Attack Shakib’s Magura house
Cricket fans vented anger on their ‘beloved’ team by smashing windshields of several cars and calling the Tigers ‘Royal Bengal Goats’ after the Bangladesh team was bundled out for petty 58 runs by West Indies at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Dhaka on Friday.
The nine-wicket loss to West Indies prompted irate fans to attack Shakib Al Ahsan’s house in Keshabpur area of Magura town in the evening.
The Detective Branch of police arrested 28 people in different places of the capital for vandalism and throwing brickbats at the bus taking West Indies players back to their hotel.
Windowpanes of the vehicle were broken, but no one was hurt, officials said.
The Mirpur police on Friday night said they detained a number of youths for damaging more than a dozen vehicles. They, however, did not give the exact number of people detained.
Supporters threw papers, the only thing they could manage from the highly-guarded gallery, at the Bangladeshi players, while some left the stadium immediately after the Bangladesh innings folded.
Asked for the reason of leaving the stadium when the match was halfway through, cricket-lover Mobassher Arshad said, ‘I don’t want to be humiliated more when they [West Indies] will win the match with all their wickets in hand.’
‘They could have been more cautious and use the experience of the match against Ireland. It was humiliating to see one after another player returning to the pavilion at quick succession,’ said Dipto Sarker, a diehard fan of the Bangladesh cricket team.
Dhaka University Teacher-Student Centre, a favourite place for cricket-lovers to watch the game on big screens, had been vibrant before the match started on Friday. But the scenario changed with a large number of spectators leaving the place in processions, chanting slogans and holding up shoes in their hands.
Some of the students also burned papers and the team’s jersey in front of the Raju Vaskorjo on Art Faculty premises in anger at the disgraceful defeat.
‘It is unacceptable for the team to score merely 58,’ said Nayan, a student of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
The police said additional forces were deployed at a number of points in the capital to avoid any untoward incident.
In Magura, angry fans riding motorcycles stopped in front of Bangladesh captain Shakib’s house at around 8:00pm and pelted brickbats at it, damaging a number of windowpanes, said bdnews24.com.
Shakib’s father Mashrur Reza said, ‘I was not home at the time. But my wife and daughter were there. I came home and saw a number of windows broken on the first floor, including those of Shakib’s room.’
He said the police were informed about the incident immediately.
Sub-inspector Maruf Hossain of Sadar police station told bdnews24.com: ‘We’re guarding his residence and looking for the attackers. Security in the area has been beefed up.’
Courtesy of New Age
