DHAKA, Bangladesh — In the predawn hours of a late December night, 30-year-old Mitun Shil woke to choking smoke and the sound of fire tearing through tin and timber. His family’s home in southern Chattogram was ablaze. The doors, he soon realized, had been locked from the outside.
With flames spreading rapidly, Shil smashed through a corrugated tin wall with his bare hands, dragging his wife, two young children and elderly parents out one by one. They escaped seconds before the roof collapsed.
By morning, the house — and nearly everything the family owned — lay in ashes.
“Our home has been turned into rubble,” Shil told The Voice the next day, standing amid the charred remains. “They wanted to burn us alive.”
The attack on Shil’s family was not an isolated act of arson. It was one of dozens of assaults over the past month that have plunged Bangladesh’s religious minorities — Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and indigenous groups — into renewed fear, according to victims, human rights groups, police records and video evidence circulating online.
Across the country, minority families describe a pattern: mobs mobilized overnight, homes locked from the outside, fuel poured, threats invoking religion, and a near-total absence of immediate protection.
A month of escalating violence
Since mid-December, Bangladesh has witnessed a sharp escalation in communal violence, particularly targeting Hindus, who make up roughly 8% of the population in the Muslim-majority country.
At least four Hindu men were killed in mob attacks or targeted violence in December alone, according to police confirmations and rights group documentation. Scores of Hindu-owned homes were burned in nighttime arson attacks. Christian institutions received bomb threats, while Buddhist and indigenous leaders reported rising intimidation.
Many of the attacks were captured on mobile phones and shared widely on Facebook and X, showing mobs chanting religious slogans, cheering violence, and in some cases preventing victims’ families from performing funeral rites. Rights groups say the spread of these videos has fueled fear rather than accountability.
“We are citizens of this country, yet our lives are treated as disposable,” said Monindra Kumar Nath, acting general secretary of the Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council, speaking at a press briefing on January 4. “This is not random crime. This is terror.”
Christian and Buddhist leaders echoed those concerns, warning that while Hindus have been most visibly targeted, other minorities are increasingly vulnerable.
Lynchings and targeted killings
The most shocking incident occurred on December 18 in Bhaluka, in the Mymensingh district.
Dipu Chandra Das, a 27-year-old Hindu factory worker, was accused by co-workers of making derogatory remarks about Islam — an allegation his family strongly denies. According to police and eyewitness accounts, a mob dragged Das from his workplace, beat him unconscious, stripped him naked, and set him on fire by the roadside.
Videos that circulated online — later verified by local media — appeared to show bystanders chanting “Allahu Akbar” as Das’s body was burned and hung from a tree. No one intervened.
“This was a public execution,” said Parvez Hashem, a Supreme Court lawyer and human rights advocate, who reviewed the footage. “It was meant to send a message.”
Das’s father, Robilal Chandra Das, said extremists attempted to prevent the family from cremating the body.
“Even after killing my son, they tried to deny him dignity in death,” he told The Voice. “That pain will never leave me.”
Police said at least ten suspects were arrested after widespread outrage.
Six days later, on December 24, another Hindu man, Amrit Mondal, 29, was beaten to death in Pangsha, in Rajbari district. The interim government insisted the killing stemmed from a dispute related to alleged extortion and criminal activity, rejecting claims of communal violence.
In a statement issued on December 26, authorities warned against what they called “misleading information” circulating online.
Mondal’s family and civil society groups disputed that account, noting the timing, the mob nature of the assault, and the broader climate of religious hostility.
“When mobs kill minorities and the first response is denial, impunity deepens,” Hashem said.
On December 29, Bajendra Biswas, a 40-year-old Hindu member of the Ansar auxiliary force, was shot dead at a factory in the same Bhaluka area. Police initially described the killing as an accidental discharge by a Muslim colleague following an argument.
Biswas’s family rejected that explanation.
“He was trained. Weapons don’t accidentally fire like this,” said his brother, Sujan Biswas. “We believe this was retaliation.”
Police later transferred the case to detectives and arrested the alleged shooter, but the motive remains disputed.
Burned alive: the Shariatpur killing
On the night of December 31, Khokon Chandra Das, a 50-year-old Hindu shopkeeper in Shariatpur district, was ambushed while returning home by auto-rickshaw.
According to family members and police, attackers dragged him onto a rural road, stabbed him repeatedly, doused him in petrol and set him on fire.
In a desperate bid to survive, Das ran while engulfed in flames before throwing himself into a roadside pond. He reached a relative’s home, badly burned, and was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
He died three days later.
“He suffered extensive burns and trauma,” said Dr. Shaon Bin Rahman, a senior physician at the hospital.
Das’s wife, Sima Das, said the family had no known disputes. “He was a simple man,” she said. “They killed him because he was Hindu.”
Police said a murder investigation is ongoing.
Homes turned into infernos
Alongside the killings, arson attacks have devastated minority neighborhoods.
Between December 21 and 23, at least seven Hindu-owned houses were burned in the Chattogram region, according to community leaders. In Raozan, attackers locked families inside their homes before setting them on fire, residents said.
Outside Mitun Shil’s burned house, a banner was left listing local political figures’ names. A second Hindu home, burned the same night nearby, bore an identical banner.
Residents said the banners warned Hindus to stop activities “against Islam.”
“This was coordinated,” said a local Hindu leader who requested anonymity. “The intent was displacement.”
On December 28, arsonists torched at least five houses belonging to a Hindu family in Dumritala village, Pirojpur district. Eight family members escaped by cutting through tin walls. Several animals were burned alive.
Police said five suspects were arrested. Video footage of villagers battling the flames went viral, prompting nationwide outrage.
Rights groups, including local monitors, say locking victims inside burning homes represents a chilling escalation.
“This is not vandalism. It is attempted mass killing,” said a senior rights monitor.
Christians under siege
Bangladesh’s Christian community, about 1% of the population, also faced mounting threats.
In early November, crude bombs were thrown near St. Mary’s Cathedral in Dhaka. One exploded at the gate of a nearby Catholic school.
On December 2, Catholic colleges received anonymous threat letters accusing them of proselytizing and warning of attacks. The letters were signed by a group calling itself ‘Tawhidee Muslim Janata’.
“There is fear everywhere,” said Bishop Sebastian Tudu of Dinajpur Diocese on December 17. “We are living under threat.”
Authorities deployed armed guards at churches nationwide during Christmas. Masses went ahead, but under heavy security.
Political transition and extremist resurgence
The violence unfolds amid Bangladesh’s most turbulent political period in decades.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted in August 2024 following mass protests in which Islamist parties and allied groups played a prominent role. An interim administration led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus assumed power with military backing, pledging elections.
Rights advocates argue the transition has emboldened Islamist and extremist networks previously constrained by the state.
“This is not a coincidence,” Hashem said. “When enforcement weakens, organized groups act.”
Several convicted extremists jailed for past attacks on secular activists have been released in recent months, legal experts noted.
Former Prime Minister Hasina, now in exile in India, accused the interim government of failing to protect minorities, according to comments reported on January 1.
A shrinking minority
According to community groups, minorities made up about 19% of Bangladesh’s population in the 1970s. By 2022, that figure had fallen to around 9%.
“This decline is not a demographic accident,” said Dr. Dwijen Bhattacharjya, president of the Hindu-Buddhist Unity Council USA. “It is driven by fear, violence and forced migration.”
Since August 2024 alone, rights groups claim dozens of minorities have been killed and thousands of incidents recorded, including assaults, arson and sexual violence.
“We want justice, not sympathy”
Minority leaders say statements are no longer enough.
“We want arrests, prosecutions and protection,” Nath said. “Without justice, violence becomes policy by neglect.”
At candlelight vigils across Dhaka, families described burned homes, lynched relatives and shattered lives.
“I never thought this could happen here,” said a Hindu teacher from Mymensingh. “Now we know how little our lives matter to some people — just because of our religion.”
Human rights organizations warned that unless perpetrators are punished, communal violence risks becoming entrenched.
“This is no longer a series of incidents,” Ain o Salish Kendra said in a statement. “It is a sustained crisis.”
