After targeted attacks on Hindus, Bangladesh government tries to justify the Muslim mob violence; deletes post blaming Indian media after backlash

Case ID : e899544 | Location : Dhaka District, Bangladesh | Date of Incident : Mon, 26 May, 2025
Case ID : e899544
location Dhaka District, Bangladesh
date 26 May, 2025
After targeted attacks on Hindus, Bangladesh government tries to justify the Muslim mob violence; deletes post blaming Indian media after backlash
Hate speech against Hindus
Denial or mocking of genocide/large-scale persecution

Case Summary

Muhammad Yunus, the Chief Advisor to the Bangladesh Government, posted a tweet on X, attempting to whitewash the communal attack on Hindus in Jessore district, Bangladesh, perpetrated by a Muslim mob. Yunus characterised the violence as an act of ‘anger and retaliation’ by the Muslim mob rather than ‘targeted communal hostility’ towards the Hindu victims. According to reports, on 22 May 2025, a Muslim mob in Dahar Mashihati village, Jessore district, launched coordinated attacks on multiple Hindu families, physically assaulting them and looting and vandalising their homes and shops. The violence followed the murder of Tariqul Islam, a local Krishak Dal leader, amidst a land lease dispute with a local leader, Piltu Biswas. In retaliation, the Muslim mob unleashed mayhem on several innocent and unsuspecting Hindu families. As many as 20 Hindu homes were selectively targeted and violently attacked and arson, leaving the victims displaced and traumatised. Following this violent attack against the Hindu community, several Indian media outlets, including OpIndia, covered the news. Yunus downplayed the collective punishment meted out to the Hindu community by Muslim mobs as the result of ‘anger and retaliation’ and not ‘targeted communal hostility.’ He sought to blame OpIndia for accurately reporting the targeted communal violence against Hindus by Muslim mobs of around 150 people. He also attempted to create the false impression that the attacks on Hindu homes were not communal in nature, and also claimed that Bangladesh’s communal harmony remains robust. OpIndia’s Editor-in-Chief, Nupur J Sharma, had additionally lambasted Muhammad Yunus and his sinister attempt to pass off the anti-Hindu violence in Jessore as an isolated incident. She had highlighted how Islamists have been emboldened under his regime, with violent mobs seemingly having a free hand to persecute religious minorities. Having realised that his tweet aimed at negating the OpIndia report exposed his own Islamist nature, the ‘chief advisor’ to the interim government of Bangladesh deleted his controversial tweet. Contrary to Yunus’s claims, Bangladesh is far from a society characterised by ‘communal harmony’. Since the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5, 2024, Bangladesh has plunged into chaos as Islamist extremists have taken 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. ISKCON leader Chinmoy Krishna Das Prabhu and his aides have been targeted, while attempts to ban ISKCON and suppress Hindu protests through sedition charges highlight systematic persecution under Muhammad Yunus’s interim government.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Hate Speech against Hindus. The subcategory selected is- Denial or mocking of genocide/large-scale persecution. Denial or mocking of genocide/large-scale persecution/ethnic cleansing refers to the act of denying or minimising the fact of the ethnic cleansing and/or genocide and/or religious persecution of Hindus. This often involves denying the scale, mechanisms, religious intent, or even the occurrence of the ethnic cleansing and/or genocide and/or religious persecution of Hindus. Hate speech of this kind involves the dissemination of falsehoods that deny or distort established historical facts or mock the suffering of Hindus by saying that they deserved the persecution, motivated by Hinduphobia. Denying such atrocities is not only about the denial of facts or rewriting/revising history, but it also delegitimises the religiously motivated persecution of Hindus, the religious hate/motivation/animosity that led to the persecution, and dehumanises Hindus as a religious group. Such denial of ethnic cleansing and/or genocide and/or religious persecution of Hindus not only denies the suffering but also paves the way for future/present atrocities and hate speech, inciting prejudice and violence against Hindus. It also provides a justification for violence by delinking religious animosity from religiously motivated crimes committed against Hindus. Since such denial and/or mocking of genocide/ethnic cleansing/atrocities motivated by religious animosity leads to present and future ramifications of creating more hate speech, violence, dehumanisation and delegitimisation, it would be considered hate speech under this category. This instance constitutes a hate crime against Hindus. Firstly, the murder of Tariqul Islam during a land dispute resulted in a large mob selectively targeting and attacking the wider Hindu community rather than seeking justice through lawful means. The coordinated attacks marked by physical assaults, looting, and the destruction of Hindu homes and shops were not random acts of violence but deliberate actions aimed at selectively attacking the Hindu community. This pattern of collective punishment based on religious identity is a strong indicator of a religiously motivated crime, with the intent to intimidate, displace, and traumatise the minority Hindu community. Instead of acknowledging the targeted nature of these attacks, Muhammad Yunus, the Chief Advisor to the Bangladesh Government, attempted to whitewash the targeted violence against the Hindu community. In his public statements, Yunus justified the communal attack by the bloodthirsty Islamists, framing the incident as a spontaneous outburst of anger and retaliation rather than a coordinated attack on Hindu minorities. This narrative seeks to obscure the reality that the violence was directed specifically at Hindus. It also minimises the seriousness of the crime and fails to address the underlying issues of religious intolerance and communal hatred against Hindus in Bangladeshi Muslim society. Such whitewashing not only denies justice to the victims but also emboldens Muslim perpetrators by signalling official indifference or tacit approval. Compounding the problem, Yunus also criticised the Indian media outlets, such as OpIndia, for their accurate reporting on the targeted attacks against Hindus. He accused them of exaggeration and communalising the entire issue. This response attempts to shift the focus from the suffering of the Hindu victims to media bias, thereby undermining efforts to bring international attention to the plight of Bangladeshi Hindus. Accurate reporting is essential for accountability and justice, and attacking the media for exposing targeted communal violence only serves to perpetuate impunity and silence minority Hindu voices. In doing so, Yunus’s actions not only fail the Hindu victims but also undermine the principles of transparency and communal harmony he claims to uphold. Since this case undermines and whitewashes the targeted attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh by Muslim mobs, this case is being added to the hate crime database.

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Case Status


Unknown

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Perpetrators Details

Perpetrators


State and Establishment

Perpetrators Range


One Person

Perpetrators Gender


male

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