Indigenous Santal woman brutally attacked, ancestral home set ablaze in Bangladesh

Sanjoy Kumar Barua

In a devastating act of violence emblematic of the systemic marginalization of Bangladesh’s indigenous communities, a Santal woman was brutally assaulted, and her home set ablaze yesterday in Gaibandha’s Gobindaganj upazila.

The incident, allegedly orchestrated by Rajahar Union Parishad Chairman Rafiqul Islam and his men, highlights the precarious existence of the Santals in the face of unrelenting land dispossession.

Philomena Hansda, a 55-year-old matriarch of the Santal community, now lies in a hospital bed in Bogura, her body battered and her spirit shaken.

The assault unfolded when she and her family sought to protect their ancestral land from being appropriated under the guise of false documentation—a practice that has systematically eroded indigenous landholdings in the region.

“Yesterday morning, the chairman and his men began filling our ancestral land with earth,” recounted Philomena’s son, British Soren.

“When some of our youths protested, they beat my cousin Nicholas Murmu mercilessly. I confronted the chairman, but he lunged at me with a bamboo stick. My mother intervened to shield me, only to be struck with such force that she collapsed, bleeding from her ear.”

As Philomena was rushed to the hospital, her family’s ordeal deepened.

By midday, their home was engulfed in flames, reportedly set alight by the chairman’s followers.

Firefighters arrived to extinguish the blaze, but by then, their house had been reduced to smoldering ruins.

Chairman Rafiqul Islam, a former BNP leader, has denied any involvement, but his protestations are met with skepticism by the Santal community.

“This is not an isolated act of cruelty but a calculated move to displace indigenous landholders,” said Philemon Baske, president of the Sahebganj-Bagda Farm Bhumi Uddhar Sangram Committee.

The Santal community held a protest rally today, Saturday afternoon, in the Rajabirat area, condemning the assault on the Santal woman and the arson attack on her home.

Prior to the rally, a procession circled the Rajabirat area. The event was jointly organized by the Sahebganj-Bagda Farm Land Recovery Struggle Committee, the Adivasi-Bangalee Solidarity Council, and the Gaibandha Social Struggle Council.

Philimon Baskey presided over the rally.

“Since independence, over 250 bighas of Santal land in Rajabirat village have been seized through forgery and coercion, forcing many families to abandon their ancestral homes”, said Philimon.

The Santals, among the most marginalized groups in Bangladesh, have endured decades of systemic displacement and violence, their ancestral lands shrinking under the weight of fraudulent claims and state apathy.

Their plight is a glaring indictment of the nation’s failure to uphold the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which guarantees the protection of indigenous heritage and land rights.

On November 6, 2016, a police-led eviction drive in Sahebganj-Bagda Farm unleashed unprecedented devastation.

The operation, targeting 2,500 Santal families, culminated in the deaths of three men and the complete incineration of their village.

Armed forces, allegedly colluding with influential entities, orchestrated the arson, forcing residents to flee amid gunfire.

As Philomena Hansda’s family sifts through the ashes of their home, the Santal community confronts yet another wound in their long history of resilience.