Hindu professor manhandled by Muslim mob at Chittagong University over perceived links to Hindu organisations

Case ID : 9957d3a | Location : Chittagong District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Thu, 3 July, 2025
Case ID : 9957d3a
location Chittagong District, Bangladesh
date 3 July, 2025
Hindu professor manhandled by Muslim mob at Chittagong University over perceived links to Hindu organisations
Attack not resulting in death
Attacked for supporting/being part of perceived Hindu party/org or working for Hindu community
Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In Bangladesh, a Hindu man named Kushal Baran Chakraborty, an Assistant Professor at Chittagong University, was manhandled by Muslim students who accused him of being an agent of the RSS and a member of ISKCON. A board meeting was scheduled for July 4 in the Vice-Chancellor’s conference room to consider the professor’s promotion. However, a group of Muslim students gathered in front of the university’s administrative building to protest both the board meeting and the Hindu professor. When Professor Chakraborty entered the building for the scheduled meeting, the crowd turned into a mob, manhandled him, and raised slogans. They accused him of discrimination and labelled him a RAW agent and an RSS supporter. Kushal Baran Chakraborty is also listed as the 20th accused in the 2023 assault case involving Enamul Haque Chowdhury. Monayem Sharif, a student from the Department of Public Administration, accused him of being involved in anti-Bangladesh activities and spreading misleading information about the country. Another protester, Ashikur Rahman, described him as an agent of the Awami League. Students referred to the professor as a symbol of tyranny and a threat to national integrity. In response, Professor Chakraborty rejected the accusations and described the protests as orchestrated propaganda. He stated that he was in Dhaka at the time of the incident involving lawyer Alif and questioned the credibility of the accusations, noting that the police did not register a case against him. He emphasised that he was falsely labelled a member of ISKCON simply because he works for minority rights. He described the attackers as terrorists and paid agents, stating that they could not prove a single accusation and were only trying to block his promotion. Following the widespread protests, the university’s chief registrar confirmed that the promotion board proceedings for Professor Chakraborty were withdrawn. This incident is one of the several incidents of the continued persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh, which has only increased manifold since the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5, 2024. After her violent ouster, 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. Reports have exposed how Muslim students forced around 60 Hindu teachers, professors, and government officials to resign. Exiled Bangladeshi activist Asad Noor has also revealed that the minority Hindu community is now being coerced into joining ‘Jamaat-e-Islami’. Hindu religious events have been repeatedly targeted. On 6th September, a procession carrying Lord Ganesha’s idol was attacked in Chittagong. Ahead of Durga Puja, multiple incidents of idol vandalism occurred, including attacks in Mymensingh, Pabna, Rajshahi, Kishoreganj, and Dhaka. On 29th November, a violent Muslim mob attacked three temples in Patharghata, Chittagong, immediately after Jumma Namaz. The crackdown on Hindu voices has also escalated. On 30th November, Hindu journalist Munni Saha was arrested in Dhaka. Muslim mob attacks have increased in Bangladesh, for example, on 22nd May 2025, a Muslim mob carried out arson attacks selectively on Hindu homes in Dahar Mashihati village in Abhaynagar upazila in Jessore district of Bangladesh. Even ISKCON leader Chinmoy Krishna Das Prabhu and his aides have been targeted, and attempts have been made to ban ISKCON and suppress Hindu protests through sedition charges. These arbitrary actions point to a systematic pattern of persecution under Muhammad Yunus’s interim government.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: - Attack not resulting in death. Within it, the sub-category 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 sub-category relevant here 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. The incident involves Kushal Baran Chakraborty, a Hindu Assistant Professor at Chittagong University, who was physically harassed and manhandled by a Muslim student mob that gathered to obstruct his promotion. The students raised slogans against him, calling him a RAW operative, an RSS agent, an ISKCON member, and anti-national. Chakraborty was targeted for working on minority rights and being perceived as part of Hindu ideological networks. By calling him an ISKCON or RSS member and a RAW agent, the mob sought to criminalise his Hindu identity, equating it with subversion, disloyalty, and a threat to national integrity. These labels were strategic tools of dehumanisation, meant to justify violence, exclusion, and professional sabotage. The attack on Chakraborty was not merely institutional or political; it was rooted in a deep-seated religious hostility toward his Hindu identity. In a Muslim-majority country like Bangladesh, many Muslim segments view the success of a Hindu academic as intolerable, a challenge to the Islamist social order. The harassment he faced was part of a broader pattern where Hindu individuals are demonised, ostracised, and attacked simply for existing visibly and confidently in public spaces. As Chakraborty himself stated, the ISKCON label was used against him solely because of his work in support of minority rights. This reflects a disturbing reality where even neutral or humanitarian efforts by Hindus are met with suspicion, hostility, and violence. This was not just an objection to his promotion, but a targeted act of religious intimidation, aimed at suppressing the economic, intellectual, and social advancement of Hindus in Bangladesh. The goal was not just to cancel one promotion—it was to send a broader message: that a Hindu who rises through merit, asserts his rights, or advocates for minorities is a threat, and must be stopped. Therefore, this incident must be documented as a religiously motivated hate crime, rooted in both the perceived association with Hindu organisations and the fundamental fact of the victim's Hindu identity. This case highlights the ongoing hatred, intolerance, violence, and bigotry faced by the Hindus in Bangladesh at the hands of the majority Muslim population. The level of hostility and religious intolerance against Hindus in Bangladesh continues to escalate, with such abductions and attacks becoming alarmingly frequent, especially since the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5, 2024. Since then, 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. The lack of prompt action by the police further emboldens the perpetrators, which creates an atmosphere of fear and insecurity among Hindus in Bangladesh.

Victim Details

Total Victim

1

Deceased

0


Gender

  • Male 1
  • Female 0
  • Third Gender 0
  • Unknown 0

Caste

  • SC/ST 0
  • OBC 0
  • General 1
  • Unknown 0

Age Group

  • Minor 0
  • Adult 1
  • Senior Citizen 0
  • Unknown 0
Case Status Background
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Case Status


Unknown

Case Status Background
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Perpetrators Details

Perpetrators


Muslim Extremists

Perpetrators Range


Unknown

Perpetrators Gender


male

Case Details SVG
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