Hindu girl in Bangladesh sentenced to 5 years in jail over accusation of blasphemy on social media

Case ID : 0b66aa1 | Location : Dhaka Division, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Sun, 1 November, 2020

Case ID : 0b66aa1

Dhaka Division, Bangladesh

1 November, 2020

Hindu girl in Bangladesh sentenced to 5 years in jail over accusation of blasphemy on social media

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked over 'Blasphemy'

Case Summary

Tithy Sarkar, a former student of Jagannath University and the convenor of World Hindu Struggle Council, was arrested after Islamists accused her of making derogatory remarks against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. Sarkar reported to the Pallabi police that her Facebook account was hacked and that the blasphemous comments were made by an unidentified hacker. After filing the complaint, she went missing, and her phone was untraceable. On October 23, 2020, she was temporarily suspended from the university amidst protests. The CID later claimed Sarkar had faked her abduction and gone into hiding with her boyfriend, Shiplu Mallik. She was arrested on November 11, 2020. In May 2021, the CID filed charges against Sarkar and Mallik. On November 4, 2021, the Dhaka Cyber Tribunal charged her under the Digital Security Act (DSA). Another Hindu man, Niranjan Baral, was also arrested for spreading rumours about her disappearance. Four years after the accusations, on May 13, 2024, Justice AM Zulfikar Hayat of the Dhaka Cyber Tribunal sentenced Sarkar to five years in prison, with an additional one-year probation under strict conditions. Despite Bangladesh's secular claims, its blasphemy laws are frequently used by Islamists to target religious minorities, including Hindus.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

Blasphemy essentially refers to the desecration of anything which is held sacred/holy to a group of people. However, for religious supremacist groups, the elements of ‘blasphemy’ are ever-changing, shifting and expanding – leading to infringement on the rights of other religious groups, freedom of speech and expression, threats and even physical violence. There are instances where blasphemy is also used as a dog whistle to target Hindus owing to intrinsic animosity towards Hinduism. There are several instances where stating truths as mentioned in the non-Hindu doctrine itself has led to unmitigated violence against Hindus. There have also been instances where non-Hindus have themselves created a ‘blasphemous’ situation, like placing a Quran in a temple, to use it as an excuse to attack Hindus. Essentially, Blasphemy charges are often made up and/or are used to shut down any form of criticism of non-Hindu faiths and as a tool to target Hindus. Any physical violence over Blasphemy charges against Hindus are foundationally based on animosity for Hindus and their faith owing to religious supremacist ideologies, therefore, such attacks would be documented as religious motivated hate crimes under this category.