Hindu man brutally tied to a pole and severely beaten by Muslim mob in Gazipur, Bangladesh

Case ID : d326e37 | Location : Gazipur District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Thu, 1 January, 2026

Case ID : d326e37

Gazipur District, Bangladesh

1 January, 2026

Hindu man brutally tied to a pole and severely beaten by Muslim mob in Gazipur, Bangladesh

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

A Hindu man was tied to a pole and severely beaten by a mob in Tongi, Gazipur, on suspicion of theft in Bangladesh on 02nd January 2026. As per reports, a Hindu man named Suman, also called Sumon, 30 years old, was accused by several Muslim men of stealing a mobile phone in Dhaka. He was then tied to a roadside pole and ruthlessly beaten by the agitated mob. The incident occurred around 2:00 pm under the flyover at Tongi Station Road intersection on the Dhaka Mymensingh Highway. Police later arrived at the scene, rescued him, and took him to Shaheed Ahsan Ullah Master General Hospital in Tongi. As per the eyewitness account, Suman, the Hindu man, was suddenly attacked by an agitated mob without any provocation. Sub-Inspector Mehedi also said Sumon was known locally as a beggar and had no prior record of theft. People knew him as a good person. A group of agitated Muslims suddenly attacked him, suspecting him of being a thief. His hands and legs were broken. Police added that he was only able to state his name, and his address remained unknown. As his condition was critical, he was transferred to DMCH. 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.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Attack not resulting in death. The sub-category 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 the 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. This case is a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime against Hindus, as a Hindu man was severely beaten by an agitated Muslim mob on mere suspicion of theft in Bangladesh. The victim, identified as Suman, was known locally as a harmless individual with no prior record of theft, a fact later acknowledged by the police. Despite this, he was tied to a roadside pole and subjected to extreme physical violence in full public view. Some may argue that the available details do not explicitly state a religious motive. However, the broader context cannot be ignored. When a society is experiencing an ongoing pattern of ethnic or religious cleansing, individual acts of violence must be examined within that environment. In such conditions, the dehumanisation of a particular religious group and the normalisation of hostility toward that group shape how violence is inflicted, even when perpetrators do not articulate religious slogans at the moment of attack. In Bangladesh, false accusations such as theft or blasphemy have repeatedly been used as pretexts to justify mob violence against Hindus. The brutality of this assault, the absence of due process, and the selection of a Hindu victim who posed no threat reflect a wider pattern in which Hindus are treated as collectively suspect and expendable. The public nature of the violence was intended to humiliate and terrorise, not to resolve any alleged offence. This incident occurred amid a documented surge in anti-Hindu violence following the death of Sharif Osman Bin Hadi, during which Hindu homes, temples, and individuals were systematically targeted. Previous cases, including the lynching of Dipu Chandra Das over fabricated allegations, demonstrate how quickly suspicion escalates into lethal violence against Hindus under conditions of communal hostility. Apart from this, the Hinduphobia Tracker has documented multiple instances of targeted Hindu attacks showing an alarming pattern of incitement and intolerance. For instance, Bajendra Biswas, a 42-year-old Hindu security guard, suffered brutal murder at the hands of his Muslim colleague Noman Mia in Bhaluka sub-district, Mymensingh district, Bangladesh, on 29 December 2025. The burning of Dipu Chandra Das, another Hindu man targeted over a false blasphemy allegation in Mymensingh district, is an example of cases where atrocities against Hindus have been committed by a Muslim mob only because the victims belonged to the Hindu religious identity. Had this been a crime devoid of any religious animosity, the mob of muslim men would not have attacked a helpless, unprovocative man, who was believed to be a beggar. Moreover, the sudden targeted attack of the agitated mob on the Hindu man itself suffices to show that the attack was religiously motivated. This further demonstrates deep-seated religious profiling and hatred, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. When Hindus face such brutal killing solely for their religious identity, such acts send a chilling message to the remaining Hindu minority in the area that they could be killed and persecuted at any moment. This instils pervasive fear and intimidation, and escalates tensions among Bangladesh's vulnerable Hindu community. Given that this case meets the parameters of a religiously motivated crime, it is being added to the Hinduphobia Tracker's hate crime database. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the date of each incident based on when the act or offence actually occurs, rather than when it is later reported by media outlets. Therefore, for documentation purposes, the date when the victim suffered the ordeal, i.e., 2nd January 2026, has been selected in the Hinduphobia Tracker database.