Houses of two Hindu families set on fire in Bangladesh amid rampant persecution of Hindus

Case ID : e274eb4 | Location : Dhaka Division, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Fri, 25 July, 2025

Case ID : e274eb4

Dhaka Division, Bangladesh

25 July, 2025

Houses of two Hindu families set on fire in Bangladesh amid rampant persecution of Hindus

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In the Harirampur upazila in Manikganj district of Bangladesh, houses of two Hindu families were set on fire by a few unidentified miscreants. According to reports, the victims were identified as Balai Haldar and Parimal Haldar. They suffered damages totalling about Tk 13 lakh. On the day of the incident, the fire was spotted by a neighbour, who immediately notified the fire department. However, by the time the fire service arrived, the houses were almost burnt to ashes. Following this, the police were informed. Subsequently, they came to the location and claimed that the fire could have been due to a short circuit. Harirampur Police OC Mohammed Mojibur Rahman claimed, “I talked to the fire service team and they believe that it could have been caused due to an electrical short circuit.” Parimal Haldar, who was affected by the fire, said, "All our family members had gone to Dhaka to see the doctor. Meanwhile, at night, we received news that the house was on fire and that everything had burnt down. We returned home in the morning. We came and saw that one room had been completely reduced to ashes. My room and furniture, including everything else, were damaged. I do not know how the fire started. It may have started from an electric short circuit." Even Balai Haldar said, "None of us were at home. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, a fire broke out at Parimal Haldar’s house, and right after it was extinguished, a fire broke out in a room at my house. Subsequently, neighbours broke the window glass and put out the fire. I do not know how the fire started." Following this, a delegation from the district BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party) convenor, Afroza Khan Rita, visited the scene. She expressed sympathy to both affected families and, from Afroza Khan Rita’s funds, gave a donation of twenty thousand takas to Parimal Haldar, the family most severely affected by the fire. This case serves as a stark reminder of the growing Muslim extremism and anti-Hindu sentiments in Bangladesh, which have only increased manifold since the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5, 2024. After her violent ouster, Bangladesh plunged into chaos as Islamist extremists took advantage of the political turmoil to unleash a wave of terror and violence against the Hindu community. The Islamist mobs have attacked Hindu homes, burned them to the ground, and abducted women in a horrific descent into anarchy. Several temples have been destroyed in various parts of the Islamic country in a major crackdown on Hindus. Reports have exposed how Muslim students forced around 60 Hindu teachers, professors, and government officials to resign. Exiled Bangladeshi activist Asad Noor has also revealed that the minority Hindu community is now being coerced into joining ‘Jamaat-e-Islami’. Hindu religious events have been repeatedly targeted. On 6th September, a procession carrying Lord Ganesha’s idol was attacked in Chittagong. Ahead of Durga Puja, multiple incidents of idol vandalism occurred, including attacks in Mymensingh, Pabna, Rajshahi, Kishoreganj, and Dhaka. On 29th November, a violent Muslim mob attacked three temples in Patharghata, Chittagong, immediately after Jumma Namaz. The crackdown on Hindu voices has also escalated. On 30th November, Hindu journalist Munni Saha was arrested in Dhaka. Muslim mob attacks have increased in Bangladesh, for example, on 22nd May 2025, a Muslim mob carried out arson attacks selectively on Hindu homes in Dahar Mashihati village in Abhaynagar upazila in Jessore district of Bangladesh. Even ISKCON leader Chinmoy Krishna Das Prabhu and his aides have been targeted, and attempts have been made to ban ISKCON and suppress Hindu protests through sedition charges. These arbitrary actions point to a systematic pattern of persecution under Muhammad Yunus’s interim government.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case is added to the tracker under the primary category- Attack not 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. In this case, the houses of two Hindu families were selectively burnt down by unidentified miscreants. While the available details do not explicitly indicate a religious motive, the broader context cannot be ignored. When there is an ongoing ethnic cleansing based on religious identity, every crime in and of itself is assumed to be motivated by the same religious animosity, even if there is a lack of a specific religious marker in the immediate crime. During an ongoing ethnic cleansing of Hindus, the dehumanisation of people based on their religious identity and the normalisation of religious hostility drives the crimes committed against them, even when there is a lack of stated religious motive. For the purpose of documenting the 2024 ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh, the Hinduphobia Tracker is assuming religious motivation ab initio. If a case is specifically and beyond reasonable doubt proven to be driven by motivations other than religious hostility, it will post-facto be removed from the hate crime database. This incident constitutes a hate crime against Hindus in Bangladesh as the homes targeted in the act of arson belonged specifically to two Hindu families of Balai Haldar and Parimal Haldar, while neighbouring houses, including those belonging to other communities, were left unharmed. The selective nature of this attack is key: if the perpetrators had simply intended to cause random harm or widespread destruction, they could have set fire to other houses in the area as well. Instead, they deliberately singled out Hindu families, which points clearly to an act driven by religious animosity. This kind of selective targeting fits a disturbing pattern observed in Bangladesh, where Hindu minorities frequently become targets for violence and intimidation solely because of their religious identity, underlining the persistent threat faced by Hindus in the region. Further compounding the issue, the police in this case straightaway denied the possibility of a targeted religious attack, attributing the fire to an electrical short circuit without a proper investigation. Such immediate dismissal, without rigorous inquiry, reflects the wider pattern of systematic discrimination in how authorities handle crimes against Hindu minorities. When law enforcement refuses to recognise or address targeted violence, it effectively provides cover for the perpetrators and deepens the Hindu community’s sense of injustice and marginalisation. This attitude keeps cycles of discrimination and violence unbroken and signals to Hindu victims that they cannot expect equal protection or accountability under the law. This kind of persecution of Hindus is not uncommon in Bangladesh. Repeated incidents of violence, including arson, looting, forced displacement, and attacks on temples, regularly make headlines, revealing a hostile climate of vulnerability for the Hindu community. Even though the perpetrators in this particular case remain unidentified, the actions strongly demonstrate that the crime was religiously motivated. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database.