Hindu home selectively targeted and set ablaze by Muslims in Bangladesh amidst ongoing persecution of Hindus

Case ID : d327115 | Location : Sylhet, Sylhet District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Fri, 16 January, 2026

Case ID : d327115

Sylhet, Sylhet District, Bangladesh

16 January, 2026

Hindu home selectively targeted and set ablaze by Muslims in Bangladesh amidst ongoing persecution of Hindus

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In the Bahor village of Nandirgaon Union of Gowainghat Upazila in Sylhet District of Bangladesh, a Hindu home was selectively targeted and set ablaze by Muslims. According to reports, the house belonged to a Hindu man named Birendra Kumar Dey. The victim was a teacher by profession. On the day of the incident, the Muslims attacked his house and set it on fire. A video regarding this incident circulated widely on social media. The video showed the fire spreading rapidly throughout the house, and the Hindu family members desperately tried to escape the house. The house was completely destroyed by the blaze. Reports confirmed that no one in the victim's family was injured, and the Muslim accused remained unidentified. Even Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, a Bangladeshi journalist, highlighted this incident on his official X account. On 16 January 2026, he wrote: "Hindu home comes under attack again! Islamists have once again set fire at the home of Birendra Kumar Dey alias 'Jhunu Sir' (a teacher by profession) in Bahor village of Nandirgaon union in Gowainghat upazila of Sylhet district 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 is being added to the tracker under the primary category- Attack not resulting in death. 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. In this case, the arson attack on a Hindu teacher's home in Bahor village of Nandirgaon Union of Gowainghat Upazila in Sylhet District constituted a clear instance of an anti-Hindu hate crime driven by religious animosity. The Muslim perpetrators selectively targeted a Hindu home for destruction while sparing neighbouring households, demonstrating deliberate identification based on Hindu religious identity. The attack showcased the premeditated nature of the crime, revealing intent not just to destroy property but to terrorise Hindu lives systematically. This calculated violence against a Hindu teacher and his family exposed the attackers' deep-seated hatred for Hinduism, where the mere existence of a Hindu household provoked destructive rage. Such discriminatory targeting of the Hindu minority fitted the precise definition of a religiously motivated hate crime, rooted in communal prejudice rather than random criminality. The nature of the attack confirmed that the entire Hindu family was targeted, not just Birendra Kumar Dey. Torching their home and destroying their belongings showcased that the perpetrators aimed to intimidate Hindus for their religious identity, making it a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime. This incident occurred during the ongoing persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh after the death of anti-Hindu and anti-India activist Osman Hadi. This happened just days after a Muslim mob brutally murdered Hindu man Dipu Chandra Das and set his body ablaze over a false allegation of blasphemy against Islam in Bhaluka town, Bangladesh, on 18 December 2025. Such targeted violence in quick succession demonstrated it was not an isolated event but a pattern of selective attacks on Hindus with impunity. The Hinduphobia Tracker recorded several instances of Hindus being attacked by having their houses set ablaze. One example occurred on 19 December 2025 in Dhewapara village, Raozan Upazila, Chittagong, Bangladesh, where two houses of three Hindu families were set on fire as attackers targeted them for attempted murder. Bimal Talukder, a resident of the two houses that burned down, stated that four family members were sleeping late at night when the house caught fire. Finding the door locked from the outside, they cut through the fence and escaped. In another instance on 22 December 2025, in Chattogram district of Bangladesh, a Hindu family faced targeted attempted murder by Muslims who set their home ablaze. The attackers locked the family inside the house and set it on fire, even leaving a banner at the scene with explicit threats against the entire local Hindu community. Both this incident and several similar cases made it clear that even in this case, the Hindu victims and their home faced selective targeting due to their religious identity. Therefore, this case is added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the dates of incidents based on when the crime occurs rather than when it is reported by the media. However, in this particular case, media reports have not specified the exact date when the crime occurred. Therefore, the date when the media reported this case, 16 January 2026, is selected as the indicative date of the incident. In this case, even though the entire Hindu family was targeted, the exact number of family members was not specified. Only one person was specified, that is, the victim Birendra Kumar Dey. Henceforth, a conservative estimate of 1 victim is selected as the victim count.