Hindu man brutally murdered in Bangladesh amidst ongoing persecution of Hindus

Case ID : 9958303 | Location : Chittagong District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Wed, 25 June, 2025

Case ID : 9958303

Chittagong District, Bangladesh

25 June, 2025

Hindu man brutally murdered in Bangladesh amidst ongoing persecution of Hindus

Attack resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In Yugi Para, Bagowan Union, Raozan, in the Chittagong district of Bangladesh, a Hindu youth was brutally murdered by unidentified individuals, and his body was abandoned. The Bangladesh Awami League, a political party in Bangladesh, made a post on its official Facebook page regarding the incident. The victim was identified as a 37-year-old Hindu man named Rupan Nath. The Facebook post stated: “On the banks of the Karnaphuli in Raozan, Chittagong, the body of Hindu youth Rupan Nath (37) was recovered in a state of being buried under sand.” It further stated: “This seemed to prove that during Yunus’s tenure, the Hindu minority is not safe. In Bangladesh today, the aggression of extremist fundamentalists against the Hindu community appears to have turned into state-backed action. Behind this lay the blind patronage of the Yunus government, in whose eyes humanity is blind and the safety of the life and property of minorities is meaningless. In Bangladesh, minorities are continuously persecuted. Can the Yunus administration not hear the cries of a helpless father, crushed under the aggression of extremists?” This case serves as a stark reminder of the growing Muslim extremism and anti-Hindu sentiments in Bangladesh, which have only increased manifold since the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5, 2024. After her violent ouster, Bangladesh plunged into chaos as Islamist extremists took 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- Attack resulting in death. Within this, 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, cases where the attack led to the death of the Hindu victim/s would be documented. The removal of Sheikh Hasina from power in Bangladesh on 5th August 2024 has dramatically escalated the persecution and marginalisation of the Hindu minority in this predominantly Islamic nation, intensifying what can only be described as a silent genocide. Since her ousting, Islamists have perpetrated unchecked atrocities against Hindus, including brutal physical violence, the destruction of temples and religious symbols, and the systematic displacement of Hindus from their ancestral lands. In the wake of Sheikh Hasina’s removal as Prime Minister, several attacks on Hindu temples, shops, and businesses have been recorded. Many Hindus have been savagely murdered or injured in these assaults. Amidst this wave of violence, news emerged that a Hindu man was brutally murdered by unknown perpetrators in Chittagong. 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 a 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 drive 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 a 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 constituted a hate crime because a Hindu man was singled out, murdered, and his body was discarded in a degrading, sand-buried state, signalling hostility towards his religious identity rather than a random act of violence. The victim, Rupan Nath, was found on the banks of the Karnaphuli in Chittagong, his body buried under sand, a display that conveyed contempt and intimidation towards the Hindu community. Such treatment of the deceased amplified a message of exclusion and terror, aligning with patterns in which violence is used to subordinate Hindus and instil fear. Such actions are a result of deep-seated animosity towards the Hindu community, making it an instance of a religiously motivated offence. The convergence of the victim’s Hindu identity, the violent death, and the symbolic manner of his dead body's disposal meets the threshold for a religiously motivated hate crime targeting Hindus. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database.