Case Summary

In Natore, Bangladesh, a 60-year-old Hindu man named Nimai Chandra Pahan went missing, following which he was found dead in a pond. The victim was a member of the tribal Hindu community. This case came to light when the police recovered the body of the victim, Nimai Chandra Pahan, from a pond in Abdulpur village of Sadar upazila on Wednesday afternoon (14 January 2026), four days after he went missing in Natore. The deceased Nimai Pahan was the son of the late Raghu Pahan of the same village. Police and locals stated that Nimai Pahan went missing on 10 January 2026. On 14 January 2026, locals of Abdulpur saw the victim's body floating in a pond and informed the police. The police then attended the scene and recovered the dead body. Regarding this incident, the Natore Police Station Officer-in-Charge, Shafiqul Islam, stated that no injury marks were found on the body of the deceased. The body was then sent to Natore Modern Hospital morgue for autopsy. At the time of writing this report, further legal action is underway. 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.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Attack resulting in death. Within it, 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 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. In this case, a 60-year-old tribal Hindu man named Nimai Chandra Pahan was found dead after going missing for four days, with his body recovered from a pond in Abdulpur village, Natore Sadar upazila, Bangladesh. Although no injury marks were visible and the body was sent for autopsy, the circumstances of his disappearance and recovery in a context of vulnerability raised concerns beyond a natural death. 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 dehumanisation of minorities, particularly Hindus, can contribute to crimes against them without perpetrators openly stating the 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 sudden disappearance of an elderly tribal Hindu man from a rural area and recovery of his dead body from a pond aligned with patterns observed in other attacks on Hindu victims during this period, where vulnerable individuals faced unexplained deaths amidst rising communal tensions. This supported the contextual classification of likely religious hostility pending autopsy results or further evidence. The case was 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 emerged. Notably, this murder occurred just weeks after a Hindu man, Dipu Chandra Das, was killed by a Muslim 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. Therefore, this case is being recorded in the Hate Crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker.