Attacks and online misinformation frighten Bangladeshi Hindus | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Wednesday
June 11, 2025

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2025
Attacks and online misinformation frighten Bangladeshi Hindus

Bangladesh

AFP
11 August, 2024, 08:35 pm
Last modified: 11 August, 2024, 08:45 pm

Related News

  • Dhaka refutes Delhi's claim over Hindu man's death in Dinajpur
  • Majority of attacks on minorities were political motivated ones: Police report
  • Minorities in Bangladesh: What India's parliament is told, what is kept from them
  • Protection of minorities in Bangladesh absolutely critical: US
  • Brought our concern over attacks on minorities to Bangladesh's attention: Jaishankar tells Lok Sabha

Attacks and online misinformation frighten Bangladeshi Hindus

Those fears, however justified, are being turbocharged by a wave of false rumours of other, deadly attacks being spread online and amplified by the media in Hindu-majority neighbour India.

AFP
11 August, 2024, 08:35 pm
Last modified: 11 August, 2024, 08:45 pm
A member of the Bangladeshi Hindu community looks on while holding a banner against violence targeting the country's minorities during a protest in Dhaka on August 9, 2024, days after a student-led uprising ended the 15-year rule of Sheikh Hasina. Photo: LUIS TATO / AFP
A member of the Bangladeshi Hindu community looks on while holding a banner against violence targeting the country's minorities during a protest in Dhaka on August 9, 2024, days after a student-led uprising ended the 15-year rule of Sheikh Hasina. Photo: LUIS TATO / AFP

Young Bangladeshi professional Tanushree Shaha is outraged by recent mob violence against her family in the chaotic wake of premier Sheikh Hasina's ouster from power, fearful that her fellow Hindus could face more reprisals.

Those fears, however justified, are being turbocharged by a wave of false rumours of other, deadly attacks being spread online and amplified by the media in Hindu-majority neighbour India.

Hindus are the largest minority faith in mostly Muslim Bangladesh and are considered a steadfast support base for Hasina's party, the Awami League.

The Business Standard Google News Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel

After Hasina's abrupt resignation and flight abroad on Monday brought an end to her 15 years of autocratic rule, numerous Hindu families came into the crosshairs of their neighbours.

"A group of people vandalised my uncle's shop," said Shaha, the 31-year-old manager of a handicrafts business in the capital Dhaka.

She told AFP the mob had stolen his cash till and emptied the shelves of his grocery store further north in the city of Mymensingh.

They then beat him and demanded more money to prevent future attacks.

Whenever a government falls or a problem arises, we are victimised by opportunists

Shaha was standing with more than 1,000 Hindus at a boisterous rally near Dhaka University, where the student protests that toppled Hasina began last month.

The group had gathered to demand the country's new interim government, led by Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, urgently protect members of their faith from harm.

But Shaha said the animosity towards Hindus ran deeper than the national upheaval of the past month.

"Whenever a government falls or a problem arises, we are victimised by opportunists," she said.

'Women were abused'

Hindus account for around eight percent of Bangladesh's 170 million people.

That is a sharp fall from 1947, when the haphazard partition of India and Pakistan on religious lines at the end of British colonial rule sparked widespread violence.

Many more fled in 1971 during Bangladesh's devastating liberation war against Pakistan.

Up to three million people died in the conflict and Hindus, seen as supporters of independence, were disproportionate victims.

Over the past week, religious rights groups said they documented more than 200 incidents of attacks on minority communities, a figure that also includes Christians and Buddhists.

"The incidents include attacking homes, vandalising shops and places of worship," rights activist Rana Dasgupta said in a video statement. "Women were abused too."

Hundreds of other Hindus arrived at the Indian border after Hasina's fall, asking to cross.

'Don't differentiate by religion'

Nearly all of these attacks took place in the chaotic hours after the premier fled and the police force, loathed for firing on anti-Hasina demonstrators, went on strike.

The young students who ousted her and other members of the public have stepped into the law-and-order vacuum.

They have organised nightly neighbourhood watch groups, and posted volunteers outside temples to stop looting.

"We are staying awake at night to catch the robbers," Mohammed Miad, patrolling one busy Dhaka neighbourhood after midnight on Sunday, told AFP.

Student protest leaders met with the Hindu community on Friday to hear their concerns and pass them on to Yunus's administration.

Yunus himself said on Saturday that there was no room for discrimination in the country.

"Our responsibility is to build a new Bangladesh," he told reporters.

"Don't differentiate by religion."

'Aren't we citizens?'

Anxieties are being further inflamed by the spread of false reports of attacks online suggesting the violence against Hindus is orders of magnitude worse than reality.

Many originated from social media users in India, whose Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an unabashed champion of the Hindu faith and was a staunch backer of Hasina's rule.

Their reporting and analysis reflects a worldview that is quite out of touch with the reality on the ground

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an unabashed champion of the Hindu faith and was a staunch backer of Hasina's rule

One widely shared X post written in Hindi, India's most common language, falsely claimed that over 500 Hindus had been killed, hundreds of Hindu women raped and dozens of temples burned to the ground.

Many of the more outlandish claims had also been picked up and reported as fact by Indian media, International Crisis Group's Thomas Kean told AFP.

"Their reporting and analysis reflects a worldview that is quite out of touch with the reality on the ground," he said.

Hasina took refuge in India after her fall, heightening animosity towards the regional giant among Bangladeshis.

But whether this provoked a spike in violence against practitioners of India's majority faith in Bangladesh is far from certain.

Many attacks appear to have been petty and opportunistic robberies against a largely affluent but vulnerable minority.

Kean said that of the more than 450 people killed in the unrest around Hasina's ouster, there was no indication that Hindus had been disproportionate victims.

Yet even if the worst reports of attacks against Hindus were fabricated, the pervasive sense of fear and anger within the community has persisted.

"After the fall of the dictatorship, we were supposed to hold a victory rally," student Moumita Adhikari, 20, told AFP at the Hindu protest near Dhaka University.

"So why are we protesting here?" she asked. "Aren't we citizens of this country?"

Top News

Hindu Minority / Hindu community / Religious minorities / Minorities

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Foreign firm to draft merger plan for investment promotion agencies
    Foreign firm to draft merger plan for investment promotion agencies
  • Representational image. Photo: Collected
    Extended Eid holidays may reduce remittance inflows, expatriates turn to unofficial channels
  • Demonstrators react to crowd control munitions being shot at them as protests against federal immigration sweeps continue, in downtown Los Angeles, California, U.S. 10 June 2025. Photo: REUTERS
    US Marines arrive in LA; California governor warns 'democracy under assault'

MOST VIEWED

  • Illustration: Duniya Jahan/ TBS
    Forget Katy Perry, here’s Bangladesh’s Ruthba Yasmin shooting for the moon
  • A file photo of Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Ahsan H Mansur. Photo: Collected
    'I have no relation with this': Ahsan Mansur debunks Joy’s allegations over daughter’s Dubai flat
  • Faiz Ahmad Tayeb. Photo: BSS
    Import duty on raw materials for e-bikes, lithium batteries reduced from 80% to 1% in some cases: Faiz Taiyeb
  • Screengrab from video shows a group of local youths forcing tourists to leave a tourist spot in Utmachhra area of Sylhet's Companiganj on Sunday, 8 June 2025, citing allegations of obscene activities and environmental damage
    Locals declare tourist spot in Sylhet 'closed', force visitors to leave
  • Shakil Ahmed. Photo: Collected
    DU student allegedly hangs himself following threats over old derogatory comment about Prophet on Facebook
  • Photo shows the Land Cruiser Prado car belonging to former member of parliament (MP) Anwarul Azim Anar found in Kushtia. Photo: TBS
    Luxury car of ex-AL MP Anar, who was killed in Kolkata, found in Kushtia

Related News

  • Dhaka refutes Delhi's claim over Hindu man's death in Dinajpur
  • Majority of attacks on minorities were political motivated ones: Police report
  • Minorities in Bangladesh: What India's parliament is told, what is kept from them
  • Protection of minorities in Bangladesh absolutely critical: US
  • Brought our concern over attacks on minorities to Bangladesh's attention: Jaishankar tells Lok Sabha

Features

Illustration: Duniya Jahan/ TBS

Forget Katy Perry, here’s Bangladesh’s Ruthba Yasmin shooting for the moon

15h | Features
File photo of Eid holidaymakers returning to the capital from their country homes/Rajib Dhar

Dhaka: The city we never want to return to, but always do

2d | Features
Photo collage shows political posters in Bagerhat. Photos: Jannatul Naym Pieal

From Sheikh Dynasty to sibling rivalry: Bagerhat signals a turning tide in local politics

3d | Bangladesh
Illustration: TBS

Unbearable weight of the white coat: The mental health crisis in our medical colleges

6d | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

Greta Thunberg deported from Israel

Greta Thunberg deported from Israel

17h | TBS World
BNP is not a revolutionary party: Mirza Fakhrul

BNP is not a revolutionary party: Mirza Fakhrul

18h | TBS Today
News of The Day, 10 JUNE 2025

News of The Day, 10 JUNE 2025

15h | TBS News of the day
Trump sends 2,000 more National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles

Trump sends 2,000 more National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles

18h | TBS World
EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Advertisement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2025
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net