7th July: Buddhists mourning for bombing at Bodh Gaya
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NP News - July 7
The year 2022 marks the ninth anniversary of Islamic bombing of the campus of Mahabodhi Temple at the Buddhist holy site in Bodh Gaya in 2013.
Nine low-intensity bombs blasted both inside and outside of the Mahabodhi temple campus in Bihar, India on July 7, 2013, by Islamic militias, in which Bodhi Tree was partly destroyed injuring two Buddhist monks. One was from Myanmar.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on the spot. However, the National Investigation Agency reportedly announced that the Islamic terrorist group Indian Mujahideen was responsible for the bombings, according to reports.
The incident witnessed terror merit to one of the holiest places on earth, as well as a UNESCO heritage site as it went off nine serial blasts for revenge against the anti-Muslim movement in Myanmar.
Myanmar, living under Buddha’s teachings, was the emblem of peaceful coexistence between different religions until recent decades. Most obvious site of peaceful coexistence can be seen at downtown Yangon, Sule junction where you can see ‘Sule Pagoda’, just across a road to which, ‘Emmanuel Baptist Church’ and Bengali Sunni Jameh Masjid locate. This compound scene situates the very central to metropolitan Yangon City.
A sad truth is that Buddhism and its associate cultures become subjected to terror attacks in Myanmar in recent years. Figures say at least 50 Buddhist monks and one nun were killed in terror assaults that occurred between mid-2021 to July 2022. The last victim, a Buddhist Sayadaw from Pauk of Magwe Region was brutally beheaded. Again, monasteries were frequently hit by hand-made bombs or Molotov cocktails.
Another prominent terror assault on Buddhism worldwide was in March 2001 when the Taliban destroyed two 6th-century monumental statues carved into a hill in Afghanistan.
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