Hindu auto-rickshaw driver stabbed to death by Muslim men amidst ongoing persecution of minority Hindus in Bangladesh

Case ID : d32703e | Location : Feni District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Sat, 10 January, 2026

Case ID : d32703e

Feni District, Bangladesh

10 January, 2026

Hindu auto-rickshaw driver stabbed to death by Muslim men amidst ongoing persecution of minority Hindus in Bangladesh

Attack resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

Hindu man, Samir Kumar Das, 28, faced a fatal assault by a group of Muslim men in Dagonbhuiyan, Feni district, Bangladesh, on the evening of 11 January 2026. Samir Kumar Das was beaten and stabbed with locally made sharp weapons, sustaining fatal injuries. After the attack, the assailants took his battery-operated auto-rickshaw and fled the scene. His body was later recovered. Samir Kumar Das was the eldest son of Kartik Kumar Das and Rina Rani Das. He had left home in the evening to drive his auto-rickshaw, and when he did not return, his family and local villagers searched the surrounding areas. They later found him lying in a field with multiple stab wounds. Police initiated an investigation into the killing and launched an operation to identify and apprehend the attackers, as well as to recover the stolen auto-rickshaw. An official confirmed that the body had been recovered and sent for an autopsy. The killing of Samir Kumar Das occurred amid a series of attacks on Hindu minorities in Bangladesh. 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 documented under the selected primary category: Attack resulting in Death. Under this, the selected subcategory 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, cases where the attack led to the death of the Hindu victim/s would be documented. Here, a Hindu man was brutally beaten and stabbed with locally made sharp weapons, and his battery-operated auto-rickshaw was stolen by the attackers. The body of Samir Kumar Das was later recovered. In the prevailing environment of anti-Hindu hostility in Bangladesh, this incident is treated as consistent with the wider pattern of violence affecting Hindus. While some may argue that the case details do not explicitly state a religious motive, the broader context of anti-Hindu persecution in Bangladesh remains relevant for classification. During periods of sustained violence against Hindus based on religious identity, the Hinduphobia Tracker applies a contextual presumption that attacks on Hindu victims are likely faith-targeted, even when the immediate report does not record a specific religious marker. In such periods, the normalisation of religious hostility and the dehumanisation of minorities can contribute to crimes against them without perpetrators openly stating a motive. For the purpose of documenting the 2024 to 2026 ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh and the subsequent persecution after the death of Sharif Osman Hadi, the Hinduphobia Tracker records such incidents as likely religiously motivated at the point of entry. If any case is later established through credible investigation or court findings to stem from motivations other than religious hostility, it will be revised or removed from the hate crime database. In this case, the extreme brutality of the killing is consistent with the severity observed in other reported attacks on Hindu victims during this period and therefore supports the contextual classification of likely religious hostility, absent contrary evidence. The case is documented as likely involving faith targeting, given the victim’s identity and the surrounding pattern of persecution, while remaining open to revision if new facts emerge. Notably, this murder occurred just weeks after a Hindu man, Dipu Chandra Das, was killed by a mob in Bhaluka town, Bangladesh, on 18 December 2025, following a false blasphemy allegation. When viewed alongside such incidents, the present case is recorded as part of a broader cycle of violence affecting Hindus, reinforcing the contextual presumption applied in this period.