Case Summary

In the Chattogram district of Bangladesh, a Hindu family faced targeted attempted murder by Muslims who set ablaze the family's home. The accused locked the family inside the house and set the house on fire. They even left a banner at the scene with explicit threats against the entire local Hindu community. This incident occurred on 22nd December 2025 in Raozan, Chattogram district, where a Muslim mob set fire to a Hindu family’s house, destroying the property. The blaze reduced all household items and furniture to ashes and also killed the family’s pets. The attackers left behind a handwritten warning banner in Bengali near the burnt house, openly threatening the Hindu community living in the area. The banner accused Hindus of taking part in activities that went against Islam and warned them to stop immediately or face serious consequences. The banner read, "This is to inform the Hindu residents of this area that you are being closely observed. You are accused of engaging in activities against Islam and the Muslim community. You are hereby warned to stop your movements, meetings, and activities immediately. If you fail to comply, you will face severe consequences." The house belonged to expatriates Jayanti Sangha and Babu Shukushil. Locals stated that the family narrowly escaped the fire by cutting through a fence at the right time. Other family members also escaped. Locals said that apart from the people, nothing remained inside the house. A fresh wave of anti-Hindu violence prevailed across Bangladesh following the death of Sharif Osman Bin Hadi. This escalation occurred against the backdrop of ongoing anti-Hindu violence that had persisted since the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government in August 2024, during which Hindu homes, temples, and religious spaces were repeatedly attacked, and the Hindu community faced intimidation, arson, and mob attacks. In the aftermath of Hadi’s death, Hindu homes were selectively targeted and set ablaze in multiple localities by Muslim mobs, forcing families to flee and rendering many homeless. The violence was not sporadic but patterned, with Muslim mobs targeting Hindu neighbourhoods, properties, and religious symbols with impunity. One of the many victims of this wave of violence was a Hindu man named Dipu Chandra Das, who was brutally lynched by a Muslim mob over false allegations of blasphemy. Such targeting of innocent Hindus over fabricated charges illustrated the vulnerability of the Hindu minority under conditions of rising communal hostility. Posters and written materials calling for the extermination of Hindus were displayed in public spaces, signalling an alarming normalisation of genocidal rhetoric. Combined with acts of physical violence, arson, and vandalism, these developments demonstrated a coordinated campaign designed to terrorise the Hindu community and assert Islamic dominance. Notably, Sharif Osman Bin Hadi was a Muslim political activist and student leader known for his anti-Hindu and anti-India stance. He was actively involved in the political unrest that followed the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government and was killed in Dhaka in December 2025 during clashes, after which Hindus were blamed and subsequently targeted.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category selected in this case is- 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. Another primary category selected is- Hate speech against Hindus. The subcategory selected is- Violent Threats. Violent threats, explicit, implicit or implied, is the most dangerous form of hate speech since it goes beyond discriminatory and prejudicial language to express the intent of causing harm to an individual or a group of people based on their religious identity and faith. There could be several different kinds of threats that are issued to Hindus based on religious animosity. An explicit threat would mean the direct threat of violence towards an individual Hindu, a group of Hindus or Hindus at large. Physical violence, death threats, threats of destruction of property belonging to Hindus and threats of genocide would mean explicit threats against Hindus for their religious identity. Implicit threats may not be a direct threat but implied through the use of symbols of actions – for example – in the Nupur Sharma case, other than explicit threats, there were also implicit threats when Islamists took to the streets to burn and beat her effigies. It implies that they want to do the same to Nupur Sharma – thereby is considered an implicit threat. Violent threats can be delivered in person, through letters, phone calls, graffiti, or increasingly through social media and other online platforms. It would be important to understand that a threat – explicit or implicit, online or offline – to an individual who happens to be a Hindu does not qualify as a religiously motivated threat. Such a threat, while vile and dangerous, could be owing to non-religious reasons and/or personal animosity. To qualify as a religiously motivated threat, it would need to exhibit an indication that the individual is being targeted for religious reasons and/or owing to his/her religious identity as a Hindu. In this case, the Hindu family in Chattogram district faced a targeted attack solely for their religious identity when Muslims locked them inside their home and set it ablaze, constituting a clear religiously motivated crime with the intent to murder. The perpetrators attempted to kill the family and destroy their property simply for being Hindus, exposing deep-seated religious animosity towards the Hindu community. The family escaped only by desperately cutting through a fence amidst the blazing fire, underscoring the calculated brutality. This selective targeting of Hindus through such premeditated methods revealed not mere property destruction but a systematic attempt to annihilate the Hindu presence in the area. The attackers' deep hatred for Hinduism, where the mere existence of a Hindu family provoked murderous rage, fits the precise definition of a religiously motivated hate crime rooted in communal prejudice against the Hindu minority. The handwritten banner left at the scene further confirmed anti-Hindu hate speech, accusing all local Hindus of activities against Islam and the Muslim community while demanding they cease all movements, meetings, and activities, or face severe consequences. This portrayed the mere presence of Hindus as inherently anti-Islamic, providing Muslim extremists with justification for violence against Hindus. Such explicit threats against the Hindu community for their faith incite fear and foreshadow further attacks, marking a clear instance of hatred towards Hinduism that elevated the arson into a religiously motivated hate crime. This incident occurred just days after a Hindu man, Dipu Chandra Das, was brutally murdered and his body set ablaze by Muslim radicals over an unproven allegation of blasphemy against Islam in Bhaluka town, Bangladesh, on 18th December 2025. Such targeted violence in quick succession demonstrated it was not an isolated event but a pattern of selective attacks on Hindus with impunity. Recent patterns reinforce this reality: on 19th December 2025, in Dhewapara village, Raozan Upazila, three Hindu families endured similar targeting by unknown attackers. As per the victims, the miscreants locked the doors and set the houses on fire. The family members managed to escape by cutting through the tin and bamboo fence. These repeated assaults on Hindus for their religious identity confirm a deliberate campaign of religiously motivated hate crimes against the Hindu community. Given that this case meets the parameters of a religiously motivated crime, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: In this case, even though the Hindu family was targeted, the exact number of family members remained unspecified in media reports. Coverage highlighted only two victims, Jayanti Sangha and Babu Shukushil. Therefore, for documenting this crime, a conservative estimate of two victims is being considered, and the victim count is recorded as '2'.