Bangladeshi security forces have arrested 1,308 persons as part of “Operation Devil Hunt” amid incidents of mob attacks and vandalism in the country, The Daily Star reported on Sunday.

The persons arrested were mostly members of the Awami League and its associate organisations.

The country’s interim government launched the security operation on Saturday after student activists were injured during vandalism at the home of an Awami League leader near Dhaka, PTI reported. The Awami League is led by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The joint operation involving the Army, the police and their specialised units had led to the arrest of 274 persons mainly in Bangladesh’s metropolitan cities, PTI quoted local media as having reported.

Eighty-one members of the Awami League were arrested in Gazipur, 25 km north of the capital Dhaka, PTI reported.

On Friday night, at least 14 persons who were allegedly part of mobs out to vandalise properties linked to the Awami League were injured after being allegedly attacked in Gazipur’s Dakshinkhan area.

The violence took place during an attack on the home of former Liberation War Affairs Minister Mozammel Haque. Haque is among senior leaders of the Awami League who are absconding or have fled the country since the Hasina government was toppled in August.

The leaders of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement claimed that their activists had gone to Haque’s home to stop looting but were attacked by miscreants.

Hasina fled Dhaka for New Delhi on August 5 after weeks of student-led protests against her government that left 560 people dead. She had been prime minister for 16 years.

On August 8, Nobel laureate economist Muhammad Yunus was sworn in as chief adviser of the country’s interim government.

On Sunday, The Business Standard (Bangladesh) quoted Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, the home affairs adviser in the interim government, as saying that the security operation will continue until all “devils” face justice and that “not a single devil should be left out”.

“What does ‘devil’ mean? It refers to evil forces,” PTI quoted Chowdhury, a former military officer, as saying. “This operation is aimed at those who try to destabilise the country, break the law, engage in criminal activities, and commit acts of terrorism.”

Those who had attacked the student activists in Gazipur would be brought to justice, he added.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the rival of the Awami League, has lauded the interim government for launching the security operation.

Violence in Bangladesh

The attack in Gazipur on Friday was part of widespread violence that erupted in Bangladesh on Wednesday over a planned speech by Hasina online. Mobs have targeted Hasina’s supporters and members of her Awami League, and vandalised properties belonging to them in Dhaka and other cities.

On Wednesday, a group of protesters vandalised and then demolished the home of Hasina’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Dhaka’s Dhanmondi neighbourhood, which had been converted into a memorial museum. The building was demolished using heavy machinery as the police allegedly did not intervene.

Rahman was a key figure in Bangladesh’s independence movement and the country’s founding president.

Hasina, in a speech broadcast by the Awami League on Thursday, accused Yunus of planning to murder her, The Hindu reported. She said that Bangladesh had become a “land of terrorists and militants”.

On Friday, Yunus called for “complete law and order” and an end to attacks on the properties of Hasina and leaders of her “fascist” Awami League “or against any citizen on any pretext”.