Hindu man killed by unidentified men in Bangladesh amidst ongoing persecution of Hindus

Case ID : d326ee9 | Location : Dhaka Division, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Mon, 1 December, 2025

Case ID : d326ee9

Dhaka Division, Bangladesh

1 December, 2025

Hindu man killed by unidentified men in Bangladesh amidst ongoing persecution of Hindus

Attack resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In Raipura Upazila, located in the Narsingdi district of Bangladesh, a 42-year-old Hindu man named Prantos Karmakar was killed by a few unidentified men on 2 December 2025. According to media reports, the victim, Prantos Karmakar, owned a jewellery shop. On the day of the incident, a group of unidentified men wearing masks called him out of his home. They took him to the playground of Dighliyakandi Government Primary School and shot him in the chest at point-blank range before fleeing the scene. The victim was first admitted to Raipura Upazila Health Complex and later shifted to Narsingdi Sadar Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries. Dr Asad Abdullah Khan, Medical Officer at Narsingdi Sadar Hospital, said, “He was brought in dead. The family mentioned bullet injuries, but a post-mortem is required for confirmation.” Narsingdi Additional Superintendent of Police (Crime), Sujan Chandra Sarkar, said the motive and identity of the perpetrators remain unclear, adding that the investigation was ongoing and updates would be provided in due course. 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.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Attack resulting in death. Within this, 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, cases where the attack led to the death of the Hindu victim/s would be documented. This case constitutes a clear instance of a religiously motivated crime, as a 42-year-old Hindu man, Prantos Karmakar, was singled out and killed by a few unidentified people in Bangladesh, a country that experiences sustained and well-documented persecution of Hindus. The killing did not occur in isolation; it reflected deep-seated hatred tied to the victim's faith in a nation gripped by anti-Hindu hostility. Regarding this incident, some may say that the case details do not explicitly indicate a religious motive. However, the broader context of anti-Hindu persecution in Bangladesh cannot be ignored. When there is ongoing ethnic cleansing based on religious identity, every crime is assumed to be motivated by the same religious animosity, even if there is no specific religious marker in the immediate crime. During 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 no 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 a reasonable doubt proven to be driven by motivations other than religious hostility, it will post-facto be removed from the hate crime database. The Hindu victim was subjected to brutal murder amidst the religious persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh. The timing and severity of this brutal killing, with a point-blank gunshot to the chest after abduction to a school playground in Raipura Upazila of Narsingdi, signalled hostility towards the victim's religious identity rather than a random act of violence. This showcased that he was brutalised and murdered not for any other reason but specifically for being a Hindu. The violence showcased clear communal undertones, making it a religiously motivated offence. The murder of a Hindu man over his identity laid bare the terror Hindus face in Bangladesh, where simply existing as one invites deadly violence. Such targeted brutality unmasked profound animosity towards Hinduism and its adherents, marking this as an undeniable instance of a hate-driven attack. Even though the religious identity of the perpetrators remained unknown, the act clearly demonstrated communal motivations behind the crime. Therefore, this case was added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker.