Minor Hindu girl abducted by her Muslim teacher in Bangladesh amidst ongoing persecution of Hindu minorities

Case ID : 30a8e98 | Location : Sirajganj District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Mon, 4 May, 2026

Case ID : 30a8e98

Sirajganj District, Bangladesh

4 May, 2026

Minor Hindu girl abducted by her Muslim teacher in Bangladesh amidst ongoing persecution of Hindu minorities

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In Raiganj, Sirajganj, Bangladesh, a minor Hindu girl was abducted by her college teacher, Mohammad Rabiul Alam, a Muslim by faith. She was rescued by police after remaining missing for approximately 25 days. The victim, 17-year-old Poli Kumari Bhowmik, daughter of Beli Rani Bhowmik and a resident of Brahmagachha village in Raiganj Upazila, left her home on the evening of 5 May 2026 and did not return. The following day, her mother filed a complaint at Raiganj Police Station, stating that Mohammad Rabiul Alam, a teacher at Raiganj Upazila Sadar Mohila College where the victim studied, had abducted her. The accused is a resident of Koyra village in Brahmagachha union of Raiganj Upazila. Following the complaint, police launched an investigation and used information technology to trace the missing girl. During the investigation, officers discovered that she was staying in the Gobindaganj area of Gaibandha district. Acting on this information, police conducted a raid in the Katabari area under Gobindaganj Police Station on 31 May 2026, rescued the minor Hindu girl, and arrested Mohammad Rabiul Alam. According to Raiganj Police Station Officer-in-Charge Md. Ahsanuzzaman, a case was registered against the accused, who was subsequently produced before a court and remanded to judicial custody. As the rescued victim was a minor, she was produced before the relevant administrative court in accordance with legal procedure. The incident sparked widespread discussion in the locality, and further legal proceedings were underway. These incidents occurred against the backdrop of a sustained wave of anti-Hindu hostility in Bangladesh. The escalation of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh has unfolded in three distinct phases: first, following the ouster of Sheikh Hasina’s government in August 2024; second, after the death of Sharif Osman Bin Hadi in December 2025; and third, in the immediate aftermath of the 13th National Parliamentary Election 2026. Following the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, multiple reports documented attacks on Hindu homes, temples, and religious institutions, alongside intimidation campaigns, arson, and mob assaults targeting minority neighbourhoods. The Hinduphobia Tracker recorded 336 such incidents against the Hindu minority, underscoring the scale and persistence of anti-Hindu violence during this period. A further escalation occurred following the death of Sharif Osman Bin Hadi, a Muslim political activist and student leader known for his anti-Hindu and anti-India rhetoric. Hadi had been involved in political unrest after the fall of the Hasina government and was killed in Dhaka on 18th December 2025 during clashes. In the aftermath of his death, Hindu communities were blamed and subsequently targeted in retaliatory violence. Hindu homes were selectively set ablaze in multiple localities, forcing families to flee and leaving many displaced. The attacks appeared patterned rather than sporadic, with Muslim mobs focusing on Hindu neighbourhoods, properties, and religious symbols. Among the victims was Dipu Chandra Das, who was lynched to death and his body was set ablaze by a Muslim mob over false blasphemy allegations. The Hinduphobia Tracker documented 51 incidents of anti-Hindu violence in the period following Hadi’s death alone. Reports further indicated that posters and written materials calling for the extermination of Hindus were displayed in public spaces, signalling an alarming normalisation of genocidal rhetoric. The third phase of violence was unleashed after the 13th National Parliamentary Election 2026. Within days of the announcement of results, Hindu families in districts such as Noakhali, Rangpur, Nilphamari, Sylhet, Thakurgaon, and Dinajpur reported coordinated attacks involving arson, looting, assault, and vandalism of temples and homes. In several instances, Hindu homes were selectively targeted, looted, and families were threatened with displacement. The social media campaign calling for the desecration of the idol of Lord Ram at the Sanatan Complex in Rangpur emerged within this broader environment of hostility, where Hindu religious symbols, places of worship, and the Hindu community increasingly became targets of intimidation, hatred, and religiously motivated aggression.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category: Attack not resulting in death. The subcategory selected is: Attacked for Hindu identity. In several cases, Hindus are attacked merely for their Hindu identity without any perceived provocation. A classic example of this category of religiously motivated hate crime is a murder in 2016. 7 ISIS terrorists were convicted for shooting a school principal in Kanpur because they got ‘triggered’ seeing the Kalava on his wrist and tilak that he had put. In this, the Hindu victim had offered no provocation except for his Hindu religious identity. The motivation for the murder was purely religious, driven by religious supremacy. Such cases where Hindus are targeted merely for their religious identity would be documented as a hate crime under this category. In this case, a 17-year-old Hindu girl from Raiganj, Sirajganj, Bangladesh, was abducted by her Muslim teacher, Mohammad Rabiul Alam, and remained missing for approximately 25 days before being rescued by police in a different district. In the prevailing environment of anti‑Hindu hostility in Bangladesh, this incident aligns with the wider pattern of violence affecting Hindus. While some may argue that the case details do not explicitly state a religious motive, the broader context of anti‑Hindu persecution in Bangladesh remains relevant for classification. During periods of sustained violence against Hindus based on religious identity, the Hinduphobia Tracker applies a contextual presumption that attacks on Hindu victims are likely faith‑targeted, even when the immediate report does not record a specific religious marker. In such periods, the normalisation of religious hostility and the dehumanisation of minorities can contribute to crimes against them without perpetrators openly stating a motive. For the purpose of documenting the 2024 to 2026 ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh and the subsequent persecution after the political exile of Sheikh Hasina, the death of Sharif Osman Hadi, and the 13th National Parliamentary Election 2026, the Hinduphobia Tracker records such incidents as likely religiously motivated at the point of entry. If any case is later established through credible investigation or court findings to stem from motivations other than religious hostility, it will be revised or removed from the hate crime database. The circumstances of this case, where a minor Hindu student was taken away by her Muslim teacher, remaining missing for nearly a month, and being recovered only after a police investigation spanning multiple districts, reflect the vulnerability of Hindu minority girls in Bangladesh and warrant documentation as a probable faith-targeted incident in the prevailing environment of anti-Hindu hostility. Given Bangladesh's sustained pattern of persecution and intimidation of its Hindu minority, this case meets the threshold for inclusion in the Hinduphobia Tracker's hate crime database while remaining open to revision should new evidence emerge.