Hindu man burnt to death in Narsingdi amidst ongoing rampant persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh

Case ID : d3272c5 | Location : Dhaka Division, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Thu, 22 January, 2026

Case ID : d3272c5

Dhaka Division, Bangladesh

22 January, 2026

Hindu man burnt to death in Narsingdi amidst ongoing rampant persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh

Attack resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In the Narsingdi district of Bangladesh, a Hindu man named Chanchal Bhowmik alias Tarun, aged 23, was brutally killed by an unidentified person. The accused set fire to his body, resulting in his death. The incident occurred on Friday night (January 23, 2026), when the victim, Chanchal Bhowmik, was burned alive in his own shop in Narsingdi district. According to media reports, the deceased victim was sleeping in his garage as usual when someone closed the shutter from outside, poured petrol on him, and set him on fire. The attacker stood outside and watched the young man's death, then fled the spot. After local people noticed the fire and informed the fire service, fire service personnel arrived and managed to bring the fire under control after an hour of effort. After the fire was extinguished, the charred body of Chanchal Bhowmik was recovered from inside the garage. Chanchal Bhowmik’s family stated that he was murdered in a premeditated manner and suspected that he was murdered due to religious hatred. Reports also confirmed that Chanchal was the sole breadwinner of his family. His father had already passed away, and his earnings supported his ailing mother, disabled elder brother, and younger brother. According to locals, he was a calm person with no animosity towards anyone. Manindra Kumar Nath, Acting General Secretary of the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, strongly condemned and protested this incident. Expressing deep concern over the ongoing killings targeting the minority Hindu community, one after another. He demanded an immediate, impartial investigation into these murders and exemplary punishment for the killers through proper justice. Pradip Kanti Dey, President of the Bangladesh Hindu Youth Grand Alliance, expressing concern over the murder of Chanchal, said that the minority Hindu community in Bangladesh lived in fear and insecurity. He called upon the administration to remove this atmosphere of fear and to ensure an environment conducive to a peaceful and secure life for minorities as a whole. 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 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, cases where the attack led to the death of the Hindu victim/s would be documented. In this case, a Hindu man named Chanchal Bhowmik, aged 23, was brutally killed by an unidentified person who set fire to his body. The charred body of Chanchal Bhowmik 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, particularly Hindus, 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. Even the fact that the victim's family stated that the attack was premeditated and speculated that he was targeted for his religious identity also raises concern and shows that this case matches other patterns of hate-motivated killings of Hindus in Bangladesh. 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 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 added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker.