Hindu gold trader robbed, hacked to death in front of his wife in Bangladesh

Case ID : 90a09f1 | Location : Dhaka, Dhaka District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Sat, 8 March, 2025

Case ID : 90a09f1

Dhaka, Dhaka District, Bangladesh

8 March, 2025

Hindu gold trader robbed, hacked to death in front of his wife in Bangladesh

Attack resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In the Nayarhat Bazar in Dhaka’s Ashulia area, four unidentified men robbed a Hindu trader and hacked him to death while he was returning home with his wife. According to reports, the victim was identified as 47-year-old Dilip Das. He was rushed to the Enam Medical College Hospital in a critical condition. However, Dilip Das soon succumbed to his injuries. The Hindu man ran a shop called ‘Dilip Shornoloy.’ The police analysed the CCTV footage and found that the victim was attacked by four men while he was closing his shop. “As he turned around, he was hit again. Later, those men ran away from the spot with a bag belonging to Dilip. The footage shows smoke, probably because they hurled crude bombs while fleeing,” informed Ashulia Police Station Inspector (Investigation) Md Kamal Hossain.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the prime category of- Attack resulting in death. Under 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, cases where the attack led to the death of the Hindu victim/s would be documented. Here, a Hindu businessman was hacked to death in Bangladesh. While the available details do not explicitly indicate a religious motive, the broader context cannot be ignored. 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.