Hindu man tortured to death in police custody in Narsingdi amidst rampant persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh.

Case ID : d3272f6 | Location : Dhaka Division, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Wed, 21 January, 2026

Case ID : d3272f6

Dhaka Division, Bangladesh

21 January, 2026

Hindu man tortured to death in police custody in Narsingdi amidst rampant persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh.

Attack resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

A 27-year-old Hindu man named Badhan Taran was brutally tortured to death in police custody in Narsingdi, Bangladesh, on 22 January 2026. The deceased victim, Badhan Taran, the son of Shankar Taran of Paschim Kandapara Seva Sangha area in Narsingdi city, died under suspicious circumstances. According to his family, Badhan’s death was not natural, but the result of systematic torture by police while in custody. In contrast, the Narsingdi prison authorities claimed that Badhan died of natural causes. Badhan's wife, in her interaction with the media, stated that she had visited her husband in prison just two days before his death and found him in good health. She said, “Two days before his death, I went to see Badhan, and he was completely healthy and normal. Discussions about his bail were ongoing, and he seemed well. But on Thursday night (22 January 2026), the prison authorities called and said he was sick.” When she visited the district hospital, she discovered that her husband had been brought in dead at 11:30 pm, approximately 40 minutes before the hospital had been notified. She stated that the injuries on his body indicated severe torture. “His hands were broken, there were bruises on both ears, and his legs were bandaged. His eyes were bloodshot. The hospital doctor confirmed that he had died at least an hour before he was brought to the hospital,” she said. The deceased victim's wife further emphasised that the marks and bandages on Badhan’s body could not have resulted from natural causes and strongly demanded a thorough and impartial investigation into his death. She also called for the punishment of those responsible for what she described as a planned murder. Local residents in Paschim Kandapara, Narsingdi, expressed outrage and concern over Badhan’s death. Community members described the incident as suspicious and demanded intervention from higher administrative authorities to ensure justice. The Narsingdi District Jail in-charge, Humayun Kabir, dismissed the family’s allegations, calling them baseless and politically motivated propaganda. “The statements being made by the family are without merit,” Kabir said. “Badhan Taran’s death was natural, and the actual cause will be confirmed after the autopsy report is completed.” When asked about the reported injury marks and bandages, Kabir did not provide any explanation. 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. 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. In this case, a 27-year-old Hindu man named Badhan Taran was brutally tortured to death in police custody in Narsingdi, Bangladesh. His body was later recovered with severe injuries. 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 was consistent with the severity observed in other reported attacks on Hindu victims during this period and therefore supported the contextual classification of likely religious hostility, absent contrary evidence. Even the fact that the victim's family stated that the attack was premeditated, due to visible torture marks like broken hands, bruised ears, bandaged legs, and bloodshot eyes, and his wife emphasised that he was targeted while in custody, also raised concern and showed that this case matched other patterns of hate-motivated killings of Hindus in Bangladesh. 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. Despite Bangladeshi officials' claims that the victim died of natural causes, the family’s unwavering testimony that he was tortured to death demanded urgent and serious attention. The blend of deliberate violence, the authorities’ failure to protect the victim, and the prevailing, pervasive religious hostility raised concerns that this was a hate crime driven by hatred for the victim's Hindu identity. This case was not an isolated incident but part of a much larger and deeply disturbing campaign of religious persecution targeting Hindus. 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 was recorded as part of a broader cycle of violence affecting Hindus, reinforcing the contextual presumption applied in this period. Notably, this was not the first time such a brutal murder of a Hindu occurred in police custody in Bangladesh. The Hinduphobia Tracker had previously documented two other such horrific cases. In one instance, in August 2025, in Cox’s Bazar district, a Hindu man named Durjoy Chaudhary was tortured to death while in police custody. Authorities claimed that the victim had committed suicide inside the lock-up, but Durjoy’s father rejected this account, insisting his son had been beaten and murdered. He stated that Durjoy’s body was discovered partially unclothed, with his feet touching the ground, visibly bearing signs of torture. The family then filed a formal complaint demanding justice. In another instance, in November 2025, in Bangladesh, a 32-year-old deaf and mute Hindu fisherman named Bablu Das was tortured to death while in police custody. The police claimed that he died of a heart attack; however, the deceased victim’s family clearly stated that he was tortured to death by the police. Considering all the above-mentioned facts, this case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker.