Minor Hindu girl molested by Muslim man in Rajshahi amidst rising anti-Hindu hostility in Bangladesh

Case ID : 30a9cd3 | Location : Rajshahi, Rajshahi District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Wed, 5 August, 2026

Case ID : 30a9cd3

Rajshahi, Rajshahi District, Bangladesh

5 August, 2026

Minor Hindu girl molested by Muslim man in Rajshahi amidst rising anti-Hindu hostility in Bangladesh

Undecided cases

One sided obsession with Hindu woman

Rape or sexual harassment/assault of a Hindu woman

Case Summary

In Monigram Union of Bagha Upazila, Rajshahi, Bangladesh, a minor Hindu tenth-grade female student was sexually harassed by Abdul Samad, the Muslim headmaster of Monigram High School. The Muslim perpetrator made obscene remarks and an indecent proposal towards her. The student stated that Abdul Samad had been speaking obscenely to her for several days. She informed school teacher Rafiqul Islam about the matter on Thursday, 6 August 2026. Following this, her classmates and other students organised a protest rally on Sunday, 9 August 2026, beating drums and demanding the headmaster’s resignation, an impartial investigation and legal action against him. Students and local residents also stated that Abdul Samad had previously behaved inappropriately with multiple female students, including touching their bodies inappropriately on various occasions. Following the incident involving the Hindu student, students and residents surrounded the headmaster and staged a protest. As the situation became heated, police arrived and rescued Abdul Samad from the protesting crowd before taking him to the police station. The incident created tension at the school and in the surrounding areas. A meeting was subsequently held at the school in the presence of Abu Sayeed Chand, MP for the Charghat-Bagha constituency, Upazila Secondary Education Officer Abu Zafar, teachers, students, parents and local political leaders. The students and parents demanded a proper investigation and legal action against Abdul Samad and measures to ensure the safety of students. MP Abu Sayeed Chand intervened to calm the situation and stated that there would be no compromise on injustice, while action would be taken against the accused teacher based on proper evidence concerning the complaint. Upazila Secondary Education Officer Abu Zafar stated that discussions had been held with the MP and necessary instructions had been issued. Abdul Samad subsequently expressed his willingness to resign and, amid the student protests, submitted his resignation. Assistant teacher Sathi also submitted her resignation over charges of cooperating with Abdul Samad. The incident continued to cause tension at the school and in the surrounding locality. This incident occurred amidst the escalation of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh. It had 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 has 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 18 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. Such incidents underscore the vulnerability of the Hindu minority amid rising communal hostility and the weaponisation of religious accusations. 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. When combined with acts of arson, vandalism, assault, and targeted intimidation, these developments suggest a coordinated environment of hostility aimed at terrorising the Hindu community and reinforcing majoritarian dominance. 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.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case is being added to the "Undecided" database of the Hinduphobia Tracker because the available details do not establish a clear religious motive behind the crime. While the victim was a Hindu minor and the accused teacher was Muslim, the circumstances currently do not provide definite evidence that the student was targeted because of her religious identity. In this case, a minor Hindu girl was targeted for sexual harassment and an indecent proposal by a Muslim teacher in Bangladesh. The fact that the victim was Hindu and the perpetrator was Muslim raises the seriousness of the incident and warrants scrutiny into whether religious hostility played a role in the crime. This is particularly significant amidst the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh following the political exile of Sheikh Hasina on 5 August 2024. Since then, Hindus have faced widespread attacks, intimidation, killings, destruction of homes and temples, and forced conversions to Islam. Hindu women and minor girls have also repeatedly been targeted for sexually violent crimes, including rape and other forms of sexual violence with religious overtones, further contributing to the insecurity faced by the Hindu community. The Hinduphobia Tracker has documented several incidents in which Hindu women and minor girls in Bangladesh were targeted for sexual violence by Muslim perpetrators. In this context, the involvement of a Hindu minor victim and a Muslim perpetrator raises further suspicion that religious hostility may have contributed to the crime. However, it is also important to note that the accused did not appear to target only the Hindu student. Students and local residents stated that Abdul Samad had previously behaved inappropriately with multiple female students, including touching them inappropriately. This indicates that targeting female students was part of his broader pattern of conduct, irrespective of their religious identity. Therefore, although the fact that the victim in this case was Hindu raises a suspicion of religious motivation, it cannot be overlooked that the perpetrator targeted multiple female students. At the time of writing this report, there was no concurrent evidence establishing that this particular Hindu girl was targeted because she was Hindu. It remained highly possible that she was targeted because she was a minor girl whom the perpetrator considered vulnerable or easy to prey upon, making the religious motivation behind the specific crime difficult to determine. The Hinduphobia Tracker follows strict parameters for determining whether a crime is religiously motivated. At the time of documentation, this case does not meet those parameters because there is no definite evidence establishing religious hostility as the immediate motivation behind the crime. Therefore, the case would remain in the Undecided database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. If further evidence emerges demonstrating that the incident was rooted in religious hostility or that the victim was specifically targeted because she was Hindu, the case will be moved to the Tracker's Hate Crime database. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident date based on when the victim’s ordeal began rather than when the incident was reported by the media. The exact date on which the incident began was not specified in the available sources. The earliest date mentioned was 6 August 2026, when the Hindu student informed school teacher Rafiqul Islam about the harassment. Therefore, 6 August 2026 has been selected as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only.