Bangladesh's Religious Minorities Feared Violence Ahead of National Election

In the lead-up to Bangladesh's February 12, 2026 national election, rights groups documented a sharp and sustained rise in violence against the country's religious minorities, particularly the Hindu community, continuing a pattern that began after the 2024 change in government. The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, an umbrella organization representing minority communities, recorded more than 2,000 incidents of communal violence in the roughly eighteen months following the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024 — including at least 61 killings, 28 instances of violence against women (among them rape and gang rape), and 95 attacks on places of worship involving vandalism, looting, and arson.

One case that became a flashpoint for minority fears was the killing of Dipu Chandra Das, a 27-year-old Hindu garment worker in Gazipur, near Dhaka. In December 2025, Muslim colleagues accused him of making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad — an allegation that drew a violent mob to his workplace. He was beaten to death, and his body was hung from a tree and set on fire. The interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, ordered an investigation, and police reportedly arrested around a dozen people in connection with the killing, but human rights groups and Hindu community leaders characterized the incident as part of a broader surge in attacks rather than an isolated event.

Hindus make up roughly 8% of Bangladesh's population of 170 million, with Muslims comprising about 91%. Community leaders and activists interviewed ahead of the election described a pervasive sense of fear, compounded by what they characterized as a culture of impunity — the sense that perpetrators of violence against minorities were rarely being held accountable through the justice system, creating an expectation that such incidents would simply continue unaddressed. Part of this vulnerability, according to rights activists, stems from a long-standing perception that Hindus as a community voted predominantly for Hasina's Awami League party, which is now barred from contesting elections, with Hasina herself living in exile in India.

The political backdrop to this violence includes the reemergence of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, which saw the election as an opportunity to reclaim political influence after years of bans and crackdowns under the previous government. Political analysts interviewed ahead of the vote suggested that a pattern of rural attacks on minorities in the run-up to the election was designed, at least in part, to discourage minority voter participation. The tensions surrounding this issue also spilled into diplomatic relations with neighboring India, whose government publicly criticized Bangladesh's handling of minority protection, prompting Bangladesh's interim administration to characterize India's criticism as an attempt to stoke anti-Bangladesh sentiment — a dispute that extended into suspended visa services between the two countries.

The February 12 election was ultimately won by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, who in early public statements pledged that the country belongs equally to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians, and promised state protection for all citizens regardless of faith. Some Christian community leaders have expressed cautious optimism about this transition, though rights organizations continue to monitor whether this rhetorical commitment translates into a measurable reduction in violence and improved accountability for past incidents, given how deeply the pattern of impunity had become entrenched under the prior interim administration.

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Source: Al Jazeera — Read the full report