Hindu female teacher suspended from her job over allegations of blasphemy in Bangladesh

Case ID : 995845a | Location : Jhalokati District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Tue, 19 August, 2025

Case ID : 995845a

Jhalokati District, Bangladesh

19 August, 2025

Hindu female teacher suspended from her job over allegations of blasphemy in Bangladesh

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked over 'Blasphemy'

Case Summary

At Sacherlapur School and College in the Sadar Upazila of Jhalokati district in Bangladesh, a Hindu teacher named Litu Rani, alias Ritu Rani, was suspended from her position over unverified allegations of blasphemy against Islam. According to reports, Muslim students protested and held a rally against the victim, accusing her of blasphemy. She had been responsible for teaching Islam and moral education at the institution. The Muslim students claimed that Litu Rani made derogatory remarks about Islam’s holy book, the Quran, and about Allah during class. The students also claimed that the Hindu victim said, “There is no such thing as Allah and the Quran Majid was written by humans.” The Muslim students, offended by this, started protesting. During the demonstration, the students demanded punishment for Litu Rani and gathered in the school grounds to voice their outrage. They claimed that such remarks hurt religious sentiments and disrupted the academic environment. The headteacher of the school explained that the matter was under consideration and that necessary steps would be taken after discussions with higher authorities. Following this, the victim was suspended from her position. The local administration also monitored the situation closely. The allegation of blasphemy provoked reactions across different sections of society. Local Islamic leaders strongly condemned the incident and demanded religious tolerance and sensitivity within educational institutions. 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- Attack not resulting in death. Within this, the subcategory selected is- Attacked over 'Blasphemy'. Blasphemy essentially refers to the desecration of anything which is held sacred/holy to a group of people. However, for religious supremacist groups, the elements of ‘blasphemy’ are ever-changing, shifting and expanding – leading to infringement on the rights of other religious groups, freedom of speech and expression, threats and even physical violence. There are instances where blasphemy is also used as a dog whistle to target Hindus owing to intrinsic animosity towards Hinduism. There are several instances where stating truths as mentioned in the non-Hindu doctrine itself has led to unmitigated violence against Hindus. There have also been instances where non-Hindus have themselves created a ‘blasphemous’ situation, like placing a Quran in a temple, to use it as an excuse to attack Hindus. Essentially, Blasphemy charges are often made up and/or are used to shut down any form of criticism of non-Hindu faiths and as a tool to target Hindus. Any physical violence over Blasphemy charges against Hindus are foundationally based on animosity for Hindus and their faith owing to religious supremacist ideologies, therefore, such attacks would be documented as religious motivated hate crimes under this category. This incident involving the Hindu teacher Litu Rani, suspended over unverified blasphemy accusations, exemplifies a clear case of an anti-Hindu hate crime motivated by religious animosity. Although she was accused of insulting Islam and the Quran, there was no verification or proof—only mere allegations led to her suspension. Such actions reveal a pattern of targeting Hindus in Bangladesh based not on evidence but on their religious identity. In Bangladesh, there has been a recurring trend of using blasphemy accusations as a pretext to persecute Hindus, reflecting deep-rooted religious intolerance. Islamists have also historically used 'blasphemy' charges as a pretext to incite violence, settle personal scores, or intimidate Hindus into silence and submission. The disproportionate targeting of Hindus under these laws is not accidental but driven by deep-rooted religious prejudice, with blasphemy allegations serving as a tool to persecute the minority Hindu community. Since 2024, multiple cases have been documented where Muslims accused Hindus of blasphemy without substantiated proof, sparking protests, expulsions, violence, and intimidation against the Hindu community. Litu Rani’s case is a textbook example of how blasphemy allegations function as a tool for hate crimes against Hindus in Bangladesh; her suspension was not a consequence of any proven wrongdoing but was motivated by hostility towards her Hindu faith. This tactic exploits blasphemy as a facade to legitimise religious persecution, targeting a Hindu woman to intimidate and marginalise the entire Hindu community solely based on their religious identity, not facts or justice. Thus, suspending a Hindu teacher on baseless blasphemy charges underscores the systemic use of religious prejudice to inflict harm and fear on the Hindu minority, making it a hate crime driven by religious animosity. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database.