Fresh Arson Attack Raises Fears for Hindu Minority in Bangladesh
Bangladesh extremists issue final warning to minority community.
In a chilling escalation of targeted violence against religious minorities, unidentified assailants set fire to the home of expatriates Jayanti Sangha and Babu Shukushil in Chattogram, Bangladesh, completely destroying all household possessions and killing the family's pets in the flames, while the occupants managed a narrow escape by frantically cutting through a surrounding fence.
A handwritten banner discovered near the arson site delivered an explicit and menacing threat to the entire local Hindu community, written in Bengali and accusing residents of conducting activities hostile to Islam and the Muslim population, demanding an immediate cessation of all movements, meetings, and organised gatherings.
The message warned that failure to comply would result in widespread attacks on Hindu homes, properties, and businesses, asserting that no authority or individual would be capable of providing protection, and emphatically labelled the communication as the "final warning" with assurances of severe and uncompromising action against any form of resistance.
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This latest incident occurs in the wake of the horrific lynching of Dipu Chandra Das, a young Hindu garment factory worker in Mymensingh district, who on December 16 was accused of blasphemy, forcibly removed from his workplace by supervisors, delivered to an enraged Islamist mob, brutally beaten to death, and whose body was subsequently desecrated by hanging and setting alight, reportedly with participation from some colleagues.
The surge in anti-Hindu violence has coincided with renewed turmoil in Bangladesh following the death of prominent radical leader Sharif Osman Hadi in a Singapore hospital from injuries sustained in an assassination attempt, further straining already fragile India-Bangladesh diplomatic ties amid international condemnation and domestic protests in India over the systematic persecution of minorities.
Also Read: Bangladesh Summons Indian High Commissioner Over Security of Diplomatic Missions
