Hindu woman gang-raped, son held hostage, home looted and vandalised by Muslim men in Mymensingh, Bangladesh

Case ID : 30aa728 | Location : Mymensingh District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Wed, 16 September, 2026

Case ID : 30aa728

Mymensingh District, Bangladesh

16 September, 2026

Hindu woman gang-raped, son held hostage, home looted and vandalised by Muslim men in Mymensingh, Bangladesh

Undecided cases

Rape or sexual harassment/assault of a Hindu woman

Attacks against Hindus in Muslim majority nations

Case Summary

In Gafargaon, Mymensingh district, Bangladesh, a Hindu family was subjected to armed assault, sexual violence, looting, vandalism and intimidation by a group of five Muslim men. A ninth-grade Hindu student was threatened with a weapon and held hostage while his mother was sexually assaulted by two of the accused. The incident occurred at around 8 pm on 17 September 2026 at the home of an expatriate worker. Five young Muslim men, including 23-year-old Sharif Mia and 21-year-old Arif Mia, arrived at the house and initially asked for water and an axe. When the ninth-grade Hindu boy approached the door with water, the men threatened him with a weapon and took him hostage before entering the house. The accused then vandalised property and ransacked the premises before looting approximately BDT 500,000 that the Hindu family had kept for constructing their house, along with gold jewellery and other valuables. According to the victim's complaint, two of the five accused entered the house and sexually assaulted the Hindu woman, while the remaining three stayed outside. At the time of writing this report, the police were investigating the incident and examining the circumstances of the assault. One of the accused, identified as Rajib, recorded the sexual assault on a mobile phone and subsequently threatened to distribute the footage on social media unless the Hindu family paid an additional BDT 200,000 within three days. Neighbours responded after hearing screams and alerted the police. Officers launched an operation during the night and detained Rajib in an isolated area approximately one kilometre from the scene. During his arrest, Rajib threw the mobile phone used to record the assault into the water, but investigators later recovered it. Police detained Rajib, while the other four accused remained at large. Mymensingh Additional Superintendent of Police Montosh Biswas assured local residents that all aspects of the case would be investigated. Police examined the recovered mobile phone and the recorded footage, while medical evidence and other information connected with the assault were also being assessed to establish the facts. This incident occurred against the broader backdrop of the historical persecution faced by Hindus in Bangladesh. While the Hindu minority has endured discrimination, targeted violence, and religious hostility over decades, such persecution has intensified in distinct spurts during periods of political and social instability. The latest major escalation began and continued after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina’s government in August 2024, followed by another surge after the death of Sharif Osman Bin Hadi in December 2025, and subsequently in the immediate aftermath of the 13th National Parliamentary Election in 2026. Following the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, multiple incidents involving attacks on Hindu homes, temples and religious institutions were documented, alongside intimidation, arson and mob violence targeting Hindu localities. The Hinduphobia Tracker recorded 336 incidents involving the Hindu minority during this period, reflecting the scale of the escalation and the continuing vulnerability of Hindus in Bangladesh. A further spurt of violence followed the death of Sharif Osman Bin Hadi, a Muslim political activist and student leader known for his anti-Hindu and anti-India rhetoric, in December 2025. In the aftermath, Hindu communities were subjected to retaliatory violence, with Hindu homes and properties selectively attacked and several families forced to flee. Among the victims was Dipu Chandra Das, who was lynched and whose body was subsequently 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, further illustrating how existing hostility towards the Hindu minority intensified during moments of communal mobilisation. During the same period, posters and written material calling for the extermination of Hindus were also displayed in public spaces. Such rhetoric, when viewed alongside incidents of arson, vandalism, assault and targeted intimidation, reflected an environment in which hostility towards Hindus was not merely episodic but repeatedly resurfaced in more intense forms during periods of unrest. The most recent escalation followed the 13th National Parliamentary Election in 2026. In the immediate aftermath of the election results, Hindu families in districts including Noakhali, Rangpur, Nilphamari, Sylhet, Thakurgaon and Dinajpur faced attacks involving arson, looting, assault and vandalism of Hindu homes and temples. In several instances, Hindu properties were selectively targeted, and families were threatened with displacement. The present incident therefore occurred within a much longer history of persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh, where hostility towards the community has persisted over time and intensified in repeated spurts. The latest cycle began after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina and continued through subsequent periods of political and communal upheaval, leaving the Hindu minority increasingly vulnerable to targeted violence, intimidation and religious hostility.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case was added to the "Undecided" database of the Hinduphobia Tracker because, although the brutality of the crime displayed an extreme degree of hostility towards the Hindu family, the available details did not establish that the family was targeted because of their Hindu religious identity. In this case, the fact that the perpetrators subjected a Hindu woman to such violence while terrorising her minor son, looting the family and subsequently threatening them with the circulation of the assault video displayed a severe form of hostility and intimidation. However, there was no concurrent evidence establishing that this hostility was directed at the family because they were Hindu. This was particularly significant given the persecution faced by Hindus in Bangladesh following the political ouster of Sheikh Hasina on 5 August 2024. In the aftermath, Hindus across the country faced attacks on their homes, businesses and places of worship, along with looting, vandalism, arson, physical assaults, intimidation and killings. Hindu temples and idols were repeatedly desecrated, while Hindu families were also subjected to threats and violence. Hindu women were among those targeted, with several incidents involving sexual violence, assault and religiously motivated intimidation being documented during this period. The Hinduphobia Tracker has also documented multiple cases of Hindu women being targeted by Muslim perpetrators in Bangladesh, including incidents involving sexual violence and other forms of religious hostility. Against this backdrop, the fact that the victims in the present case were Hindus, while the accused were Muslim men, raises suspicion that religious hostility may have contributed to the assault. However, it was also important to distinguish between the brutality of a crime and the motive behind it. The available facts indicated that the perpetrators had subjected the family to sexual violence, armed intimidation, looting and subsequent financial coercion. The additional demand for money, coupled with the threat to release the recorded assault on social media, indicated that financial exploitation and coercion had formed a significant part of the perpetrators' conduct. There was no evidence that they had made anti-Hindu remarks, invoked the family's religious identity, demanded conversion, denounced Hindu beliefs or otherwise communicated that the woman or her son had been selected because they were Hindu. The brutality inflicted upon the Hindu woman while her minor Hindu son was kept captive demonstrated the severity of the perpetrators' hostility, but the evidence did not establish that this hostility was religious in nature. At the time of writing this report, it remained possible that the family had been targeted because the perpetrators had perceived them as vulnerable and had sought to exploit them financially and sexually, 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 did not meet those parameters; therefore, the case would remain in the Undecided database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. If further evidence emerges demonstrating that the family had been targeted because they were Hindu or that the perpetrators' hostility had been rooted in their religious identity, the case would be moved to the Tracker's Hate Crime database.