On June 26, a 21-year-old Hindu woman was raped by a local politician in Bangladesh’s Cumilla district. The main accused, 36-year-old Fazor Ali, is a member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and he raped the woman with the help of several of his allies. The incident went viral after a video of the incident went public, where the victim, stripped naked and brutally assaulted, was pleading with the perpetrators.
Circumstantial evidence suggests that the incident is a targeted event, as it occurred during a Hindu festival in the district. The husband of the woman was with her, and both were visiting the woman’s paternal home. Ali, the main accuser, entered the Hindu village and broke into the woman’s house with his aids and assaulted the woman. Ali then escaped from the villagers, and five days later was arrested by the police after a massive public uproar.
However, this is neither an isolated nor a one-time event in the country, as the Hindu minority has been getting persecuted since the beginning of history. On top of the civil disregard and everyday discrimination, Bangladeshi Hindus are always the collateral of any unrest in the country. It is high time we contemplate how many years the world will be silent on this.
The 78 Years of Persecution
Even before the independence from the British, the Hindus had been persecuted in the Bangladesh region, which was then known as the ‘United Bengal’. From 1946 to 2025, every year, there are incidents of religiously motivated atrocities happening against Hindus with little to no protection from the authorities.
Atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh Throughout the Years Since the Independence of United India (1946-2024)
The Noakhali riots of October 10, 1946, marked the beginning of organised violence against Bengali Hindus when thousands of Muslim attackers descended upon Hindu villages in southeastern East Bengal. An estimated 5,000 Hindus were brutally killed, while countless women were raped in front of their families, and over 50,000 Hindu families were forcibly displaced. The attackers burned Hindu homes to ashes, destroyed granaries filled with harvested paddy, and forced thousands to convert to Islam by making them eat beef and recite the Kalma.
The violence escalated dramatically during the 1950 East Pakistan riots, where hundreds of thousands of Hindus were systematically targeted in pogroms across the newly formed nation. In Dhaka alone, armed Ansars and police participated in widespread looting and burning of Hindu shops, homes, and temples, while hundreds were murdered and thrown into rivers. The East Bengal Government’s official figure of 200 Hindu deaths in Dhaka was considered grossly underestimated, with actual casualties reaching 600-1000. Research indicates that approximately 500,000 Hindus were killed during these massacres, forcing 4.5 million Hindu refugees to flee to India.
The pattern of systematic extermination reached its zenith during the 1964 East Pakistan riots. On January 5, 1964, violence erupted in Khulna district, where approximately 5,000 Hindus were killed and 2,000 young women and girls were abducted and forcibly converted to Islam within a single week. The Muladi massacre between February 17-20, 1964, witnessed over 700 men and elderly women being slaughtered and their bodies thrown into rivers, while 50 young Hindu women were distributed among gang leaders after being forced to convert.
The most severe episode occurred during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, when the Pakistani military conducted Operation Searchlight, which targeted Bengali Hindus, the principal backers of the independence struggle. Of the estimated 3 million Bengalis slain during the nine-month genocide, about 2.4 million were Hindus, accounting for 80% of the dead despite their minority status. Hindu homes were deliberately marked with yellow “H”s before being subjected to mass executions, while an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 Bengali women, mostly Hindu, were forced to undergo systematic rape and sexual servitude in specially built camps.
After Bangladesh gained independence in 1971, the persecution continued unabated. The demographic impact has been devastating—while Hindus made up about 31% of East Bengal’s population in 1941, they had dropped to only 8.4% by 2011. From 1964 to 2013, an estimated 11.3 million Hindus left Bangladesh owing to religious persecution, at an average of 632 departures per day. Amnesty International reported multiple incidents of rape, murder, and property destruction during the 2001 post-election riots, in which BNP supporters drove hundreds of Hindu households from their lands. The 2013 violence following war crimes tribunal verdicts resulted in attacks on over 40 temples and the destruction of 1,500 Hindu homes. The 2021 Durga Puja violence affected 34 districts, with at least 600 women sexually assaulted in Hajiganj alone, 15 Hindu men hacked to death, and hundreds of temples vandalised.
The Enemy Property Act, later renamed the Vested Property Act, has facilitated the legal theft of over 2.6 million acres of Hindu land. These coordinated attacks have not been random outbursts but calculated efforts to ethnically cleanse Bangladesh of its Hindu population, transforming a once-significant minority into a persecuted and dwindling community living in constant fear.
Atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh After the Regime Change in 2024
The fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government on August 5, 2024, triggered an unparalleled surge of violence against Bangladesh’s Hindu minority, outpacing prior decades in both magnitude and systematic brutality. Within hours of Hasina’s departure, organised attacks erupted in 49 districts, attacking Hindu communities with violence that astounded international observers. Within the first few months of the unrest, 23 Hindus were confirmed killed, and 152 temples were attacked, vandalised, or destroyed.
The perpetrators employed the same horrific methods that had characterised earlier pogroms—Hindu men were systematically targeted for execution to eliminate potential resistance, while women and children faced sexual violence and abduction. The iconic ISKCON temple in Meherpur was set ablaze, with devotees barely escaping the flames as religious idols were destroyed in acts of deliberate desecration.
The November arrest of Hindu spiritual leader Chinmoy Krishna Das on sedition charges marked a dangerous escalation, triggering widespread protests that culminated in the death of prosecutor Saiful Islam Alif, a lawyer fighting for Hindus and calls for banning ISKCON entirely. This incident demonstrated how the interim government’s actions were emboldening extremist elements to target Hindu religious leadership systematically. Property seizures accelerated dramatically, with the southwestern Khulna division alone witnessing the destruction of 295 homes and businesses belonging to minorities within two weeks in August. These persecutions have driven massive internal displacement, with thousands of Hindu families fleeing their ancestral homes for urban centres or attempting dangerous border crossings into India.
Throughout these decades, specific patterns of atrocities have persisted: targeted killings of Hindu men to eliminate resistance, systematic rape and abduction of Hindu women and girls for sexual slavery and forced conversion, destruction and desecration of temples and religious sites, seizure of Hindu property through legal manipulation, and economic boycotts to force migration. The methodical nature of these attacks suggests a planned campaign to eliminate the Hindu presence in Bangladesh.
The Deafening Silence
The international communities, organisations, and groups that have repeatedly presented themselves as vocal about many atrocities have always been silent on these atrocities Bangladeshi Hindus. Be it the UN, international media, or multinational groups and forums, these have silently witnessed the atrocities on Bangladeshi Hindus, all while hypocritically preaching about humanity when it comes to the Middle East or Europe.
Amongst all this darkness, one ray of hope emerges as awareness among Hindus regarding these atrocities is rising, and the community is being increasingly vocal about these atrocities, both amongst themselves and in their surrounding. However, the safety of Bangladesh’s remaining Hindu population still faces an existential threat, with many believing they are witnessing the final chapter of Hindu civilisation in their homeland.
Article by Subhakanta Bhanja