Another Hindu man burnt alive in Bangladesh amid growing minority violence

Sanjoy Kumar Barua

Another Hindu man has been burnt alive in Bangladesh, deepening fears among minority communities amid a surge in violence following the country’s recent political upheaval.

Chanchal Bhowmik, 23, was sleeping inside his shop in Narsingdi on the night of Friday, 23 January, when an assailant shut the metal shutter from outside, poured petrol on the premises and set it on fire, according to local journalists and eye witnesses.

Witnesses said the attacker waited outside until the shop was fully engulfed and Bhowmik was burnt to death, before fleeing the scene.

Bhowmik had worked at a local garage in Narsingdi for six years and was the sole breadwinner for his family.

His father had died earlier, leaving him responsible for his ailing mother, a disabled elder brother and a younger brother.

Local residents and the garage owner described him as a quiet, hardworking man with no known disputes or personal enmity.

His family said they believe the killing was premeditated and driven by religious hatred.

The killing is the latest in a series of attacks on minority communities—particularly Hindus—reported across Bangladesh since the fall of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government.

Despite mounting allegations of communal violence, the interim administration has sought to downplay the scale of religious targeting.

Last week, the chief adviser of the interim government, Muhammad Yunus, said that of 645 incidents involving minority community members recorded nationwide between January and December 2025, only 71 were communal in nature.

He said the assessment was based on verified First Information Reports, General Diaries, charge sheets and official investigation updates.

Bhowmik’s death follows the brutal lynching of Dipu Chandra Das in Bhaluka, Mymensingh district, during a wave of violence in December that erupted after the death of a radical activist Hadi Osman, a participant in the movement that led to Sheikh Hasina’s removal from office.

Das’s killing sparked protests and counter-protests in both Bangladesh and India, triggering a diplomatic rift and the suspension of visa services between the two countries.

In her first public address on January 23 in India since fleeing Bangladesh amid unrest in August 2024, Sheikh Hasina sharply criticised the interim leadership.

In a pre-recorded audio message played at an event in New Delhi, the former prime minister said Bangladesh had “plunged into an age of terror” and accused the interim authorities of presiding over the country’s collapse.

“Bangladesh stands today at the edge of an abyss, battered and bleeding,” she said, calling on citizens to “overthrow the Yunus regime”.

She warned that the country had become “a vast prison, an execution ground, a valley of death”.

International concern has also intensified.

In January, hundreds gathered at Parliament Square in London, demanding urgent global attention to what organisers described as the continued persecution, torture and killing of minorities in Bangladesh.

The protest was organised by the Bangladesh Hindu Association and the Bengali Hindu Adarsh Sangha, which said the demonstration aimed to highlight what it called a rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in the country.