Hindu teacher forced to resign after mob harassment by Muslims in Bangladesh

Case ID : aa4af44 | Location : Chittagong District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Tue, 15 April, 2025

Case ID : aa4af44

Chittagong District, Bangladesh

15 April, 2025

Hindu teacher forced to resign after mob harassment by Muslims in Bangladesh

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

Kanti Lal Acharya, a Hindu teacher in the Chittagong district of Bangladesh, was forced to resign from his position following harassment by a mob. Acharya, who had been serving as the acting Head Teacher of Bhatiari Haji Tobarak Ali Chowdhury (TAC) High School in Sitakunda, was surrounded, assaulted, and coerced into stepping down. The mob, comprising members affiliated with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and including some former students, targeted him on school premises. Acharya had served the institution for 35 years, during which he had been known for his generosity—offering free tuition, waiving fees, and providing shelter to students in need. A video of the incident surfaced on social media, capturing the distressing scenes of his public humiliation. His daughter, Bhabna Acharya, later shared the footage on Facebook, expressing anguish and disbelief at the treatment meted out to her father, stating that the family had been left traumatised and unable to sleep after witnessing the video.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the prime category- Attack not resulting in death. The relevant sub-category 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. 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 drives 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 reasonable doubt proven to be driven by motivations other than religious hostility, it will post-facto be removed from the hate crime database.