Hindu woman raped in a moving bus in Bangladesh, eyewitness says victim was specifically targeted owing to her religious identity

Case ID : 90a0837 | Location : Dhaka, Dhaka District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Sun, 16 February, 2025

Case ID : 90a0837

Dhaka, Dhaka District, Bangladesh

16 February, 2025

Hindu woman raped in a moving bus in Bangladesh, eyewitness says victim was specifically targeted owing to her religious identity

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

A robbery took place on a bus named Amri Travels, operated by Unique Road Royals (registration number: Mymensingh-B-11-0069), between Gazipur’s Chandra and Tangail’s Mirzapur in Bangladesh. During the robbery, eyewitnesses also recounted that the robbers sexually harassed and raped two women passengers. They alleged that the robbers specifically targeted them because they were Hindus. An eyewitness named Sohag Hasan was quoted by BBC as saying, "Another woman, likely between 25-30 years old was sitting two seats ahead of us. He (the robber) refused to let us look and was inappropriately touching different parts of her body. Each time we tried to protest, he assaulted us. He specifically chose only the Hindu girl and forcibly took her to the back seat." The affected passengers said that when the robbed bus reached the Baraigram police station in Natore, the two female passengers complained to the police about sexual harassment, however, the officer-in-charge (OC) of Baraigram police station said no one informed him about any sexual assault or rape. The eyewitness also described how the robbers looted money from the other passengers onboard the bus. However, no case was filed since the Baraigram police claimed that the crime scene was in the Mirzapur police station’s jurisdiction, the case must be filed there. Regarding the incident, Mirzapur police station OC Mosharraf Hossain said: "People are saying this happened in Mirzapur. We are trying to determine the actual details of the incident." Passengers reported that the bus, carrying around 40 people, left Gabtoli, Dhaka, for Rajshahi at 11 pm on Monday, February 17. The robbery began at 12:35 am. For three hours, the robbers looted the passengers and then dropped them off at the same location at 3:52am. When the passengers looked around, they found themselves near a petrol pump in Mirzapur police station’s jurisdiction. At that time, the bus driver, his assistant, and the supervisor made excuses for not continuing the journey. However, under passenger pressure, they finally resumed the journey. From around 11 am to 11:30 am on Tuesday (February 18), the passengers forced the bus into Baraigram police station. The driver, supervisor, and assistant of the robbed bus were released on bail. Though they received bail on Wednesday (February 19) evening, the information became public on Thursday afternoon.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the prime category of- Attack not resulting in death and within this, the sub-category 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. When there is an ongoing ethnic cleansing based on religious identity, every crime in and of itself is assumed to be motivated by the same religious animosity even if there is a lack of specific religious marker in the immediate crime. During an ongoing ethnic cleansing, the dehumanisation of people based on their religious identity and the normalisation of religious hostility drives the crimes committed against them even when there is a lack of stated religious motive. For the purpose of documenting the 2024 ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh, the Hinduphobia Tracker is assuming religious motivation ab initio. If a case is specifically and beyond reasonable doubt proven to be driven by motivations other than religious hostility, it will post-facto be removed from the hate crime database. This incident, however, appears to be a clear case of a hate crime against Hindus, as the eyewitness testimony explicitly confirms that the Hindu woman was singled out due to her religious identity. The deliberate targeting of Hindu women in such attacks is part of a broader pattern of religious persecution that has intensified in Bangladesh, particularly following the ouster of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5, 2024. In the wake of the political shift, Islamist extremists have taken advantage of the ensuing instability to unleash large-scale violence against the Hindu minority. Hindu homes have been looted and set ablaze, temples have been vandalised, and Hindu priests have been arrested under dubious charges. Women from the Hindu community have been among the primary victims, facing abductions and sexual violence as a means of religious and communal subjugation. The systematic nature of these attacks suggests a targeted campaign to terrorise and drive out Hindus from Bangladesh. This particular case, where the Hindu woman was forcibly separated and subjected to assault while others were merely looted, is indicative of deep-seated animosity toward Hindus. Sexual violence has historically been used as a tool of persecution to degrade and humiliate Hindu women, reinforcing their vulnerability as a minority community. Given the ongoing Islamist aggression against Hindus in Bangladesh, this attack is not an isolated crime but rather a manifestation of the growing religious hostility that seeks to erase Hindu presence from the country.