Regional violence in 1946 escalated communal tensions throughout British India just before the 1947 partition. One of the worst religious massacres and incidents of ethnic cleansing against the Hindu community took place in Noakhali during the 1946 riot known as the Noakhali genocide. A huge number of mass killing, raping, looting, and forcible conversions took place. The prime minister of Bengal, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, answering a question from Dhirendranath Datta in the assembly early in 1947 stated that there had been 9,895 cases of forcible conversion in Tipperah alone. He said the number in Noakhali "ran into thousands". It was not a random incident and was quite well planned, organised and directed by a few local political leaders.