Hindu man targeted for attempted murder as Muslims set his house on fire in Bangladesh

Case ID : 89db739 | Location : Pirojpur District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Fri, 26 December, 2025

Case ID : 89db739

Pirojpur District, Bangladesh

26 December, 2025

Hindu man targeted for attempted murder as Muslims set his house on fire in Bangladesh

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In Dumuria village in Bangladesh's Pirojpur district, a Hindu man named Palash Kanti Saha was targeted for attempted murder as Muslim radicals locked him inside his house and set his house on fire. According to media reports, this incident occurred at around 6 a.m. on 27 December 2025, when the Muslim perpetrators locked Palash Kanti Saha in his home and set it on fire. During this time, people standing outside the house cried and wailed. Despite their best efforts, they were unable to help Palash Kanti Saha. At least three homes belonging to the Saha family, a minority Hindu community, were completely destroyed. The affected family members included Palash Kanti Saha, Shib Saha, Deepak Saha, Shyamalendu Saha, and Ashok Saha. The victim's family stated that all their belongings were destroyed in the fire. On the day of the incident, most of Palash Kanti Saha's family members were out visiting relatives, while Palash himself stayed overnight in Pirojpur. Early in the morning, the elderly woman in the house, Sandhya Saha, went out to relieve herself. Upon returning, she found the house on fire and raised an alarm. The fire quickly spread to other nearby houses. Locals tried to extinguish the fire, but it spread rapidly. Upon receiving information, a fire brigade team arrived at the scene and, after considerable effort, brought the fire under control. The local residents also stated that a fire broke out in the same area about two years earlier, destroying several houses. Repeated incidents like these deepened the sense of fear and insecurity among the villagers. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Malviya posted on the social media platform X to raise awareness about this incident. At that time, he also stated that a day earlier, five houses belonging to two Hindu families were also burnt in West Dumuritala village of Pirojpur Sadar district. A fresh wave of anti-Hindu violence prevailed across Bangladesh following the death of Sharif Osman Bin Hadi. This escalation occurred against the backdrop of ongoing anti-Hindu violence that had persisted since the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government in August 2024, during which Hindu homes, temples, and religious spaces were repeatedly attacked, and the Hindu community faced intimidation, arson, and mob attacks. In the aftermath of Hadi’s death, Hindu homes were selectively targeted and set ablaze in multiple localities by Muslim mobs, forcing families to flee and rendering many homeless. The violence was not sporadic but patterned, with Muslim mobs targeting Hindu neighbourhoods, properties, and religious symbols with impunity. One of the many victims of this wave of violence was a Hindu man named Dipu Chandra Das, who was brutally lynched by a Muslim mob over false allegations of blasphemy. Such targeting of innocent Hindus over fabricated charges illustrated the vulnerability of the Hindu minority under conditions of rising communal hostility. Posters and written materials calling for the extermination of Hindus were displayed in public spaces, signalling an alarming normalisation of genocidal rhetoric. Combined with acts of physical violence, arson, and vandalism, these developments demonstrated a coordinated campaign designed to terrorise the Hindu community and assert Islamic dominance. Notably, Sharif Osman Bin Hadi was a Muslim political activist and student leader known for his anti-Hindu and anti-India stance. He was actively involved in the political unrest that followed the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government and was killed in Dhaka in December 2025 during clashes, after which Hindus were blamed and subsequently targeted.

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 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, the arson attack on a Hindu man in Raozan Upazila constituted a clear instance of an anti-Hindu hate crime driven by religious animosity. The Muslim perpetrators selectively targeted a Hindu family for extermination while sparing neighbouring households, demonstrating deliberate identification based on Hindu religious identity. The fact that the Hindu man from the family was locked inside their home and the house was set on fire showcased the premeditated method of the attack, revealing intent not just to destroy property but to annihilate Hindu lives systematically. This calculated violence against a Hindu man and his family exposed the attackers' deep-seated hatred for Hinduism, where the mere existence of a Hindu family provoked murderous rage. Such discriminatory targeting of the Hindu minority for elimination fitted the precise definition of a religiously motivated hate crime, rooted in communal prejudice rather than random criminality. The nature of the attack confirmed that the entire Hindu family was targeted, not just Palash Kanti Saha. Torching their home and destroying their belongings showcased that the perpetrators aimed to intimidate Hindus for their religious identity, making it a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime. This incident occurred just days after Muslim radicals brutally murdered Hindu man Dipu Chandra Das and set his body ablaze over an unproven allegation of blasphemy against Islam in Bhaluka town, Bangladesh, on 18 December 2025. Such targeted violence in quick succession demonstrated it was not an isolated event but a pattern of selective attacks on Hindus with impunity. The Hinduphobia Tracker recorded several instances of Hindus being attacked by having their houses set ablaze. One example occurred on 19 December 2025 in Dhewapara village, Raozan Upazila, Chittagong, Bangladesh, where two houses of three Hindu families were set on fire as attackers targeted them for attempted murder. Bimal Talukder, a resident of the two houses that burned down, stated that four family members were sleeping late at night when the house caught fire. Finding the door locked from the outside, they cut through the fence and escaped. In another instance on 22 December 2025, in Chattogram district of Bangladesh, a Hindu family faced targeted attempted murder by Muslims who set their home ablaze. The attackers locked the family inside the house and set it on fire, even leaving a banner at the scene with explicit threats against the entire local Hindu community. Both these previous instances and the current incident made it clear that Hindus were selectively targeted for attempted murder and their houses set ablaze. All these instances resulted from deep-seated religious animosity; henceforth, this case met this pattern and was added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: Several media reports confirmed that Palash Kanti Saha, the victim, was locked inside his own home, and his house was set on fire. However, most media reports did not specify anywhere that he was killed or died in this attack. While some reports stated that he died, the majority reported only that his house was set on fire while he was trapped inside. Therefore, the category selected for this case is "attack not resulting in death". If further information confirms that the victim died as a result of this attack, the category will change to "attack resulting in death" accordingly. In this case, even though Palash Kanti Saha was mainly affected, the entire Hindu family—including other members such as Shib Saha, Dipak Saha, Shyamalendu Saha, and Ashok Saha stood as potential targets too. Therefore, the victim count has been recorded as 5, encompassing all affected individuals.