Case Summary

In Bakerganj Upazila of Barishal district, Bangladesh, a 17-year-old girl named Sristi Saha was abducted while going to college in broad daylight by two Muslim men. According to reports, on 6 November 2025, the minor victim, the daughter of Amal Saha, a well-known grocery shop owner of Kaliganj Bazar, was going to college accompanied by her mother. During this time, two Muslim men identified as Mohammad San Majhi and his associate intercepted them in broad daylight. The perpetrators grabbed the minor girl and pushed her onto a motorcycle, forcibly abducting her, as her mother screamed for help. They immediately fled the scene. The mother, traumatised and distressed by the incident, immediately filed a case with the police, pleading for swift action. Despite repeated appeals and the seriousness of the offence, the police did not manage to rescue the girl or arrest the accused, even after a week. As of the date of writing this report, the police had not issued a detailed statement on the progress of the investigation. The victim's father said that "We filed the case right away, but my daughter has not been found. Not a single accused has been arrested.” This led to widespread anger in the minority Hindu community, who noted that the investigation was moving at an unusually slow pace. They also feared that delays could encourage criminals and further endanger vulnerable families. This case serves as a stark reminder 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 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.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Attack not resulting in death. 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. In this case, while the available details do not explicitly indicate a religious motive behind the crime, 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. To document 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 be removed from the hate crime database post-facto. This case has been added to the tracker because of the hostile and anti-minority environment that continues to exist in Bangladesh. Religious minorities, especially Hindus, are often treated with contempt and hatred, and this has only intensified after the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s regime. In the political vacuum that followed, there has been a noticeable increase in anti-Hindu violence across the country. This case needs to be seen in that context, as part of a broader pattern of rising religious intolerance and targeted hate. Amidst this heightened environment of terror, a minor Hindu girl, Sristi Saha, was abducted in broad daylight by two Muslim perpetrators. Considering the context of religious persecution, such actions are driven by deep-seated religious animosity. In such cases, the Hindu girls are abducted by Muslim men for sexual exploitation, religious conversion or trafficking. This incident is part of a recurring strategy by the Muslims in an attempt to instil fear and assert religious dominance, especially over vulnerable Hindu communities. Reports and human rights documentation consistently highlight how Hindu women are especially vulnerable to such attacks, often with little to no intervention from authorities, and how these crimes are frequently facilitated or ignored by local institutions, including the police.