Two Hindu men brutally lynched to death by Muslim mob in Bangladesh amidst rampant persecution of Hindus

Case ID : e27500e | Location : Rangpur, Rangpur District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Fri, 8 August, 2025

Case ID : e27500e

Rangpur, Rangpur District, Bangladesh

8 August, 2025

Two Hindu men brutally lynched to death by Muslim mob in Bangladesh amidst rampant persecution of Hindus

Attack resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

A Hindu cobbler named Ruplal Rabidas and his niece’s husband, Pradeep Lal, were beaten to death by a Muslim mob in Taraganj, Rangpur, Bangladesh, on 9 August 2025. The killings took place near the Bot Tola intersection in Soyar Union’s Burirhat area when the two men were returning home after visiting relatives to finalise a wedding date. Locals stopped the victims’ van at around 8:30 pm, searched Pradeep’s bag, and claimed to have found a foul-smelling liquid in a soft drink bottle. Several men, including a local named Mehedi Hasan, said they felt unwell after smelling it. The crowd then accused the men of criminal activity and dragged them to the grounds of Burirhat High School. Witnesses stated that between 500 and 700 people armed with sticks and iron rods assaulted the pair until they were unconscious. Police later recovered the victims and took them to Taraganj Health Complex, where Ruplal was declared dead. Pradeep was transferred to Rangpur Medical College Hospital, where he died at 4 am the next morning. The following day, Ruplal’s wife, Bharati Rani, lodged a murder case at Taraganj police station against 500 to 700 unidentified attackers. That evening, villagers staged a protest by placing Ruplal’s body on the Belatali highway, blocking traffic on both sides. They withdrew after receiving assurances from police, army personnel, and the local administration that the perpetrators would face legal action. Protesters maintained that Ruplal was an innocent man who had been falsely accused and brutally killed. They recounted that he pleaded for his life and sought help from police and military personnel, but no one intervened. Police confirmed the arrest of four suspects, Rafiqul Islam, Aktarul, Ebadot, and Mizanur Rahman, all residents of the Soyar area, and said that raids were continuing to apprehend others involved. Authorities stated that an investigation was underway. 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 2024, 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 2024, 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 2024, 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 has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - 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 the 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. The lynching of Ruplal Rabidas and Pradeep Lal was not a spontaneous reaction but a calculated, religiously motivated attack. The flimsy pretext of finding a “foul-smelling liquid” in a soft drink bottle was deliberately manufactured to trigger mob fury. There is no plausible way that 500 to 700 people, armed with sticks and iron rods, could have gathered at short notice without prior coordination. This scale of mobilisation points to premeditation — an organised attempt to target Hindus under the guise of punishing alleged wrongdoing. The location of the attack also suggests a deliberate design rather than an accident. The men were dragged to the grounds of Burirhat High School, a spot that could accommodate a large crowd, suggesting the attackers wanted a public spectacle to intimidate the wider Hindu community. Witnesses confirmed that the men begged for their lives, but the crowd showed no hesitation, proving that this was about hatred, not justice. This violent overreach stems from an Islamic supremacist ideology within Muslim extremist circles, which views Hindus as socially and religiously inferior. This toxic belief breeds contempt and aggression, especially when Hindus resist submission or refuse to yield in disputes. The readiness to use violence under the pretext of minor issues exposes the continuing threat Hindu communities face, as these incidents are not isolated or spontaneous but part of an ongoing pattern of religiously motivated violence. Several past incidents underscore this grim reality. The 2019 Hauz Qazi violence is a glaring example. A simple parking dispute escalated into a full-scale communal attack against Hindus in the heart of Delhi. Hindu residents, including women and children, and their sacred Durga Mandir were targeted mercilessly by Muslims. Hindu idols were destroyed, the temple desecrated, and the community subjected to physical assault. The disappearance of a 17-year-old Hindu boy during the violence highlighted the grave dangers Hindus endure, as he was beaten for his faith and forced to flee for his life. This incident exposed how routine conflicts are exploited to unleash communal violence against Hindus, leaving the community traumatised and demanding justice. Also, in the broader context of Bangladesh’s spiralling anti-Hindu violence after Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, the attack fits into a disturbing pattern. Islamist mobs have repeatedly used false charges, from idol desecration to alleged insults to Islam, to mobilise large crowds against Hindus. Here too, the concocted story of a suspicious liquid was weaponised to justify the collective punishment of two innocent Hindu men. Another similar incident happened in Jessore, Bangladesh, in August 2024. Hindu families in the Bejpara Banani Road area in Jessore were attacked in their own homes without offering any provocation. The attackers carried out vandalism, looting, and intimidation specifically against Hindu households, breaking into homes, destroying property, and stealing possessions. The violence was not incidental but directed at Hindus as a community. Fear was deliberately instilled, with women and men forced to guard their homes throughout the night. Also, 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, the dehumanisation of people based on their religious identity and the normalisation of religious hostility drive the crimes committed against them, even when there is a lack of stated religious motive. Furthermore, the sheer brutality meted out to the victims over a minor accusation strongly indicates underlying religious hostility. 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 a reasonable doubt proven to be driven by motivations other than religious hostility, it will post-facto be removed from the hate crime database.