Minor Hindu girl raped and tortured by Muslim man amidst large scale persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh

Case ID : 90a0ac6 | Location : Rangpur District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Mon, 17 March, 2025

Case ID : 90a0ac6

Rangpur District, Bangladesh

17 March, 2025

Minor Hindu girl raped and tortured by Muslim man amidst large scale persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In the Mithapukur Upazila of the Rangpur district in Bangladesh, a minor Hindu girl was brutally raped and tortured by a Muslim man named Mohammad Alam. According to media reports, the minor Hindu girl was a student in 6th grade. The Hindu girl had gone to coaching class and on her way back home, she was forcefully dragged into a cornfield by Mohammad Alam, a local resident of the area. He then raped and tortured the minor girl for many hours. When the girl did not return home on time, the family got tensed and started looking for her. After a while they found the girl lying in the cornfield in a senseless state. The girl was taken home and she received medical treatment. Her condition was so poor that she was struggling to walk. The police were notified about this incident and they reached the spot. The victim managed to name the accused, Mohammad Alam. The police registered a case against Alam and began searching for him. The police managed to arrest him on the same night. This case is a clear example of atrocities against Hindus, especially Hindu women and girls, in Bangladesh. In such cases, it is often a pattern that Hindu women and girls fall victim to sexual and physical violence at the hands of Muslim men, more so in Muslim-majority countries like Bangladesh. Numerous cases of abductions, forceable conversions and rapes of Hindu women and girls are reported in Bangladesh amidst the ethnic cleansing of Hindus. The incidents of crime against Hindu women and girls have escalated since the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5, 2024, Bangladesh has plunged into chaos as Islamist extremists have taken advantage of the political turmoil to unleash a wave of terror and violence against the Hindu community. The Islamist mobs have attacked Hindu homes, burned them to the ground, and abducted women in a horrific descent into anarchy. Several temples have been destroyed in various parts of the Islamic country in a major crackdown on Hindus. Further, the arrest of Hindu priests has exacerbated the situation, with Hindu minorities protesting across Bangladesh seeking justice.

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. 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.