Hindu female advocate harassed once again for raising voice against persecution of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh

Case ID : 30aa919 | Location : Dhaka, Dhaka District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Sat, 26 September, 2026

Case ID : 30aa919

Dhaka, Dhaka District, Bangladesh

26 September, 2026

Hindu female advocate harassed once again for raising voice against persecution of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for supporting/being part of perceived Hindu party/org or working for Hindu community

Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim

Case Summary

A Hindu advocate and minority rights activist, Chaitali Chakraborty, was harassed outside the Dhaka Press Club in Bangladesh by a Muslim man. The accused was a member of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (Chhatra Dal), the student wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). She was targeted for raising awareness about the persecution of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh. The incident came to light after a video of the confrontation went viral on 27 September 2026. The footage showed Chaitali Chakraborty being surrounded, verbally abused, and forced to leave the area while the Muslim man repeatedly accused her of spreading “fake news” about the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh. During the confrontation and while speaking to the media, the accused claimed that Hindus were completely safe in Bangladesh and insisted that no persecution of the minority community existed. He also falsely accused Chaitali of deliberately trying to vilify Bangladesh, claimed that he had Hindu friends who felt safe in the country, and denied the incident she had highlighted involving the desecration of a Hindu temple idol in Rangpur. The accused was also seen repeatedly branding the Hindu advocate a “Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) agent”, “Indian agent”, and “Modi agent”, attempting to discredit her for documenting violence and discrimination against Bangladesh’s Hindu minority. Notably, Chaitali Chakraborty had long been an outspoken advocate for the rights and security of Bangladeshi Hindus. In one of her previous interviews with journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhary, she described facing sustained persecution for her activism, including the freezing of her bank account, the freezing of accounts belonging to her husband and other family members, the loss of access to her professional mobile number, and harassment within the Supreme Court premises. She maintained that the pressure against her intensified because she spoke publicly as a Hindu and defended the rights of her community. During the interview, Chakraborty stated that Hindus who remained silent were being killed and that she had therefore chosen to speak out. She further stated that the persecution of Hindus had intensified after 5 August 2024. This public harassment occurred against the backdrop of Chakraborty’s sustained advocacy for Bangladesh’s Hindu minority and her efforts to raise awareness about the religious persecution faced by the community. Hinduphobia Tracker had previously documented another incident in which Chakraborty was targeted with religiously motivated sexual threats by Muslim journalist Ilias Hossain on social media. A screenshot of Hossain’s Facebook post circulated widely and drew criticism for its obscene language and threats of sexual violence against Chakraborty. In the post, Hossain described her as “war booty”, a religiously derived Islamic term used to refer to female captives taken as sex slaves during war, and made a direct sexual reference to assaulting her, asking whether someone would “enjoy her a little” if given the opportunity. He further used an obscene and derogatory expression suggesting that, even if she was not to someone’s taste, she could still be used to “satisfy” sexual desire. The post portrayed Chakraborty as a sexual object and also called for sexual violence against her if she was found on the street.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case is being added to the tracker under the primary category: Attack not resulting in death. The subcategory selected is: Attacked for supporting/being part of perceived Hindu party/org or working for Hindu community. In several cases, Hindus are attacked specifically or tangentially for their association with parties or organisations perceived to be pro-Hindu and/or for working in favour of the Hindu community. One of the classic cases was the attack against a Bharatiya Janata Party Yuva Morcha (BJYM) worker Praveen Nettaru. Nettaru was attacked and hacked to death for his association with Hindu organizations and his work for the Hindu community. He was murdered by PFI, a terror organization which aimed to commit a genocide of Hindus, target Hindu leaders specifically and turn India into an Islamic Nation. In such cases, it is possible that the immediate trigger for the violence is non-religious – either according to the perpetrator or the police. However, there are surrounding circumstances from which the conclusion can be reached that the victim was attacked for his association with a Hindu organization. In a similar case, Rinku Sharma was attacked by radicals. He was a member of Bajrang Dal and regularly worked for the Hindu community. While the police cited a different non-religious trigger for the attack, it is true that he was associated to a Hindu organization and the family of Rinku Sharma specifically attributed his gruesome murder to him working for Bajrang Dal and raising Jai Shree Ram slogans. Such cases are intrinsically driven by religious hate and would therefore be documented as a hate crime under this category. The other subcategory selected is: Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim. In several cases, Hindus are attacked for opposing religiously motivated crimes being committed against a fellow Hindu or simply for voicing an opinion opposing radical elements, who either have in the past or continue to persecute Hindus. In such cases, the initial attack against the victim, against which the Hindu was trying to defend the victim, would also need to be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime. Since the initial crime itself was religiously motivated and the subsequent crime of attempting to save the victim or speaking against the radical elements ends up inviting a violent attack, it would also be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under this category. This case is a clear example of a religiously driven hate crime because the perpetrator targeted and publicly harassed a Hindu female advocate solely for raising awareness about the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh. Chaitali Chakraborty was not confronted over a personal dispute or an unrelated disagreement; she was singled out because she spoke publicly about violence and discrimination against the Hindu minority. Her harassment was therefore directly linked to her advocacy for Hindu rights and her efforts to document the persecution of her community. The sustained verbal abuse, public intimidation, and repeated attempts to discredit her demonstrated religious hostility towards both her identity as a Hindu and her activism on behalf of persecuted Hindus. The fact that she was surrounded and forced to leave the area highlighted the depth of animosity she faced for speaking about anti-Hindu persecution. The perpetrator’s repeated denial of the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh further reinforced the religious nature of the incident. Hindus have faced decades of targeted violence, including the desecration of temples, attacks on Hindu homes and businesses, killings, mob assaults under allegations of blasphemy, and brutal sexual violence against Hindu women because of their religious identity. Following the exile of Sheikh Hasina on 5 August 2024, Muslim groups carried out widespread attacks on Hindu communities, resulting in hundreds of incidents of arson, looting, vandalism, and assaults on Hindu places of worship and civilians. Hinduphobia Tracker has documented 623 anti-Hindu hate crime cases in Bangladesh between 1 January 2023 and 28 September 2026, highlighting a sustained and dangerous pattern of persecution targeting the Hindu minority. By publicly denying this documented persecution while harassing a Hindu advocate for raising awareness about it, the perpetrator sought to silence the lived experiences of Bangladesh’s persecuted Hindu community, demonstrating clear hostility towards their religious identity and the acknowledgement of their suffering. The victim had repeatedly stated in previous interviews that she had faced long-term persecution after she began speaking out for the rights and security of Bangladeshi Hindus. She described financial harassment, professional retaliation, and intimidation because of her advocacy. This incident followed the same pattern: she was targeted for no reason other than her Hindu activism. While disagreement with her views was entirely possible, publicly following, surrounding, and repeatedly branding her an “Indian agent”, “RAW agent”, and “Modi agent”, as seen in the viral videos, went beyond disagreement and constituted an attempt to intimidate and silence her because she was a Hindu woman advocating for her community’s rights. This was not the first time Chaitali Chakraborty had been targeted for her Hindu identity and her advocacy for the rights of Bangladeshi Hindus. Hinduphobia Tracker had previously documented an incident in which Muslim journalist Liliyas Hossain subjected her to religiously motivated abuse on social media, describing her as “war booty”, a degrading term historically used in Islamic contexts to refer to non-Muslim female captives taken as sex slaves during war, while also making explicit sexual threats against her. The fact that a journalist, rather than an anonymous online troll, publicly employed such dehumanising and religiously charged language demonstrated a pattern of hostility directed at Chakraborty because she was a Hindu woman speaking out against the persecution of her community. Viewed alongside the Dhaka Press Club harassment, these incidents revealed repeated and sustained targeting aimed at intimidating and silencing her advocacy for Hindu rights in Bangladesh. Since this case meets the parameters of a hate crime, it is being added to the Hinduphobia Tracker's hate crime database. Disclaimer: Hinduphobia Tracker records the date of an incident based on when the crime occurs, rather than when it is reported by the media. In this case, the incident came to public attention after the video went viral on social media on 27 September 2026. As the exact date of the harassment could not be independently established, 27 September 2026 has been selected as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only. In this case, only one perpetrator was seen publicly harassing and heckling the victim throughout the viral video. Accordingly, the perpetrator count has been recorded as 1, referring to the Muslim man seen in the footage.