A 27-year-old Hindu man, Dipu Chandra Das, was lynched in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh district on Thursday over allegations of blasphemy. Police said the incident took place in Bhaluka upazila, where a mob beat Das to death, tied his body to a tree, and set it on fire along the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway. Ripon Mia, duty officer at Bhaluka police station, told BBC Bangla that the attackers acted over claims that Das had made derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad, although individuals questioned about the incident could not confirm where or how he allegedly insulted Islam.
Dipu, who worked at a local garment factory and lived as a tenant in Dubalia Para, was killed around 9 pm. A video circulating on social media appeared to show the attack, with a large crowd filming the burning, though its authenticity has not been verified. Police quickly reached the scene, but traffic in the area was blocked for hours. Das’s body was sent to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital for postmortem, and authorities are trying to locate his relatives. Ripon said, “Legal action will be taken in accordance with the law once a case is filed.”
On Saturday, Bangladesh’s chief adviser Muhammad Yunus announced that seven people had been arrested in connection with the lynching. The suspects include Md. Limon Sarkar (19), Md. Tarek Hossain (19), Md. Manik Mia (20), Ershad Ali (39), Nijum Uddin (20), Alomgir Hossain (38), and Md. Miraj Hossain Akon (46). Yunus said the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) conducted coordinated operations to apprehend the suspects.
The lynching occurred amid ongoing unrest following the death of youth leader Sharif Osman Hadi, a prominent figure of last year’s student-led July Uprising. Hadi was shot in the head by masked gunmen in Dhaka on December 12 and later died in a hospital in Singapore on Thursday. The interim government condemned the Mymensingh lynching, calling it “a brutal crime” and stating, “There is no place for such violence in the new Bangladesh. No one involved in this brutal crime will be spared.”
Authorities also expressed solidarity with journalists from national dailies, whose offices were vandalized during protests, and urged the public to reject violence, provocation, and hatred.
