Extremists try to burn a sleeping family to death, lock the door and set house on fire

Case ID : b45f3e2 | Location : Chittagong District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Wed, 11 December, 2024

Case ID : b45f3e2

Chittagong District, Bangladesh

11 December, 2024

Extremists try to burn a sleeping family to death, lock the door and set house on fire

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

Unidentified extremists set fire to the house of a Hindu man, Babu Kanti Dey, in Amtali Mouza, Bhujpur Union, Fatikchhari upazila, Bangladesh. The attack occurred at 2 a.m. while the family was asleep. The perpetrators locked the main door from outside and set the house ablaze, intending to kill the family. While the family managed to escape unharmed, they lost their property, and their house was reduced to ashes. Further, their pet cow perished in the fire. Visuals shared on social media revealed the extent of the devastation.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the primary category 'Attack not resulting in death' under the sub-category '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, extremists locked the door of a house where a Hindu family was sleeping. The house was then set on fire with the intent of killing the entire Hindu family asleep inside the house. Amid the ongoing persecution of Hindus and the ethnic cleansing afoot in Bangladesh, this case is a stark reminder about the dangers Hindu face owing to their religious identity in a Muslim majority Bangladesh. On August 5th, Bangladesh plunged into chaos after a successful coup ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, forcing her to flee the country as an enraged mob approached her residence. In the wake of the coup, Islamists exploited the unrest to launch violent attacks on the Hindu community, leading to numerous deaths, rapes, and the destruction of Hindu homes, shops, and temples, many of which were set on fire. Since then, the ethnic cleansing of Hindus has heightened with Hindus being murdered, lynched, women being raped, minors going missing, Hindus being asked to pay Jiziya, convert or flee to India - a Hindu collectivity. 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 specific religious marker in the immediate crime. During an ongoing ethnic cleansing, the dehumanisation of a 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. Note: In the visuals, there are 2 male children visible, walking amid the burnt down house. For that reason, the victim count is being recorded as 4 - the male member of the family, the wife and the two children.