Police arrest Hindu man whose Facebook post 'sparked' riots

A Hindu youth, whose alleged offensive Facebook post led to an arson attack on over 30 homes of the minority community in Bangladesh four days ago, was arrested today, the country's home minister said.
A special team of district police arrested Titu Chandra Roy from his relative's house where he was hiding.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal who visited the violence-hit Thakurpur village in Rangpur district, about 300 km from Dhaka, assured the Hindus of security, saying Bangladeshis "irrespective of their political affiliation are with you".
"This (violence) is part of a plot and such incidents were staged in the past as well, but none of the conspirators could escape justice...the culprits will not be able to escape the justice this time also," Kamal said.

The activists of the country's largest Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, a key ally of the Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by former prime minister Khaleda Zia, went on the rampage on Friday, saying the post had hurt their religious sentiment.
At least one person died when police opened fire on the rioters.

Following the violence, the police had filed two cases at the Kotwali and Gangachara police stations and arrested 124 people, Rangpur Additional Superintendent of Police Zakir Hossain said.
"A special team of district police arrested Titu Chandra Roy, who was wanted in a case of igniting violence (through the Facebook post), from a relative's house where he was hiding," a senior police officer told PTI over phone from Rangpur.

"Roy has been arrested, and legal action will be taken if he is found guilty," Kamal was quoted as saying by the bdnews24.com.
The minister said that he has heard that Roy was illiterate and left home about eight-to-ten years ago.
Rangpur Superintendent of Police Mizanur Rahman said that police did not find any insulting remarks in Roy's post on Facebook.
Roys family, however, said police wrongly arrested him for having a nearly identical name with the person they have been looking.
Investigators, earlier, hinted that culprits could have hacked his Facebook account.
Roy's mother Jiten Bala claimed that her son never went to a school and he is a village poet.