Bangladesh’s religious minorities find themselves increasingly exposed to violence, intimidation, and erasure, caught in a political and security vacuum that has steadily widened since the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5, 2025. What has unfolded since is not a series of isolated incidents but a grim continuum of targeted killings, attacks on places of worship, and the systematic empowerment of radical actors—together signalling a deepening crisis for pluralism in the country.

The pattern of violence against Hindus in particular has been stark. On December 7, 2025, Police recovered the bodies of Hindu freedom fighter Yogesh Chandra Roy (75) and his wife Subarna Roy (60) from their home in North Rahimapur in Rangpur District, both bearing fatal head injuries. Just two days earlier, on December 5, Hindu fish trader Utpal Sarkar was killed near the Kalitala Bridge in Faridpur District. On December 2, Hindu jeweller Prantosh Karmakar was shot dead at Dighalikandi village in Narsingdi District. These killings followed earlier deaths under suspicious or violent circumstances, including Natore District Mohajote President Bhaskar Bagchi (October 4), Hindu businessman Kritish Das (September 14), and senior journalist and columnist Bibhuranjan Sarkar (August 22), whose body was recovered from the Meghna River a day after he went missing.

Beyond these fatal incidents lies a broader landscape of persecution. Hindu communities have repeatedly faced arson, vandalism, assaults, abductions, sexual violence, land grabs, and attacks on temples and idols. The violence, however, has not been confined to Hindus alone. Christians, Buddhists, Ahmadis, and Sufis have also come under attack, underscoring the widening ambit of extremist intolerance.

Churches in Dhaka have been targeted with crude bombs—St. Mary’s Cathedral in Kakrail on November 7, and the Holy Rosary Church in Tejgaon on October 8, 2025. A Sufi shrine in Rajshahi District was vandalised on September 5, while earlier incidents included arson at the Ismail Shah Shrine in Barguna (March 17), vandalism of an Ahmadiyya prayer centre in Rajbari (April 7), and the robbery of a Buddhist temple in Rangunia, Chittagong (June 3), where the priest was held hostage.

Partial data collated by the Institute for Conflict Management indicates that since August 5, 2024, at least 34 instances of minority persecution have been recorded across Bangladesh, spanning districts from Rangpur and Dinajpur in the north to Khulna and Patuakhali in the south, and from Sylhet in the east to Rajshahi and Natore in the west. These figures include arrests, lynchings, forced resignations, abductions, forcible religious conversions, desecration of religious sites, and systematic dispossession of land and property.

Independent assessments corroborate the scale of the crisis. The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC) documented at least 258 attacks on minorities in the first six months of 2025 alone, including 27 murders, 59 attacks on places of worship, and multiple cases of rape, abduction, and land seizure. Between August 4 and December 31, 2024, the organisation recorded 2,184 incidents, bringing the total over an 11-month period to 2,442. As BHBCUC acting general secretary Manindra Kumar Nath observed, the violence has intensified markedly since the 2024 political transition.

International reports echo similar concerns. A June 2025 UK government policy note identified Hindus—around 8 per cent of the population—as the largest religious minority, alongside Christians, Buddhists, Ahmadis, Sufis, and atheists, all of whom face varying degrees of vulnerability. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), in its 2025 Annual Report, noted that hundreds of Hindus were reportedly killed following Hasina’s departure, while Ahmadiyya communities faced physical attacks and vandalism.

What renders the current situation particularly alarming is the apparent institutional drift that has emboldened extremist actors. The release on bail of Shafiur Rahman Farabi—sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of writer-blogger Avijit Roy—on August 22, 2025, sent a chilling signal. The demolition of filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s ancestral home in Mymensingh (July 15) and vandalism of Rabindranath Tagore’s ancestral residence at Shahjadpur (June 10) further symbolised the erosion of Bangladesh’s pluralistic cultural heritage. Meanwhile, Hindu spiritual leader Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari remains incarcerated despite a brief High Court bail order, swiftly stayed by the Supreme Court, reinforcing perceptions of selective justice.

Simultaneously, Islamist radical groups have grown increasingly assertive. Hefazat-e-Islam’s demand in June 2025 to withdraw a banknote featuring Hindu and Buddhist heritage sites, and Jamaat-e-Islami–linked protests over alleged blasphemy by a Hindu man in February, illustrate how majoritarian pressure is shaping public discourse. On November 15, 2025, the Sammilito Khatme Nabuwat Parishad escalated matters further by threatening “tougher programmes” unless Ahmadis are officially declared non-Muslim.

Even more troubling is the resurgence of militant outfits. Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), and Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT) have reportedly conducted training camps across Jhenaidaha, Rangamati, and Kurigram districts in 2025, imparting skills ranging from bomb-making to guerrilla tactics and arms training, including the recruitment of women cadres. These developments point to a dangerous convergence of ideological radicalism and operational capability.

The oppression of religious minorities in Bangladesh today is thus deeply entrenched, sustained by political volatility, weak law enforcement, and a pervasive culture of impunity. In the absence of credible deterrence and timely accountability, extremist actors continue to operate with confidence, ensuring that communal violence remains a recurring and destabilising feature of the country’s internal order. For Bangladesh’s minorities, survival increasingly depends not on constitutional guarantees, but on navigating a landscape where they remain, quite literally, at the mercy of extremists.