Yet another Hindu was killed in Bangladesh. The killing of Bajendra Biswas, a 42-year-old Hindu security guard, inside a garment factory in Mymensingh is not an isolated tragedy.
It is part of a grim and accelerating pattern. Shot dead on duty at Sultana Sweaters Limited in Bhaluka on Monday evening,
Biswas became the third Hindu killed in Bangladesh within just twelve days.
Police have arrested the accused, Noman Mia, another security guard, who claims the gun went off accidentally.
But context matters. When deaths follow one another with disturbing regularity, when victims belong overwhelmingly to the same vulnerable minority, and when accountability remains episodic at best, the claim of coincidence begins to ring hollow.
Just days earlier, on December 24, Amrit Mandal, a 29-year-old Hindu youth from Hosendanga village in Rajbari district, was beaten to death by a mob late at night.
Before that, on December 18 near Dhaka, Dipu Chandra Das was lynched, his body hung from a tree and set on fire after allegations of blasphemy. These were not secret crimes.
They were public acts of violence, carried out by crowds, in full view of society.
This is not random lawlessness. It is systematic targeting.
From One-Third to Less Than Eight Per Cent
Today, Hindus constitute less than 8 per cent of Bangladesh’s population. In 1901, they were around 33 per cent. A community that once formed one-third of the population has been reduced to a fragile remnant.
This decline was not the result of natural demographic change. It followed a long, brutal sequence of events: Partition, communal massacres, discriminatory laws, state failures, military coups, repeated riots, and relentless migration driven by fear.
Historically, this land was not peripheral to Hindu civilisation. It was central to it. The region now called Bangladesh was part of ancient Vanga and Samatata, ruled for centuries by Hindu dynasties such as the Palas, Senas and Devas.
The Deva dynasty’s capital at Bikrampur—located in present-day Munshiganj—was a thriving centre of Sanskrit learning, temples and culture. Hindu civilisation here was not imported; it emerged from this soil.
Partition and the Birth of Fear
The first major rupture came with the British partition of Bengal in 1905, planting the dangerous idea that religion could define political borders.
That idea returned catastrophically in 1947. When India was divided, East Bengal became East Pakistan.
Overnight, Hindus who had lived there for generations were recast as outsiders in a state defined by religious identity.
Violence followed. Migration followed. By 1951, the Hindu population had fallen to about 22 per cent. Those who stayed did so because land, livelihoods, temples and memories cannot be abandoned easily. But staying came at a price.
In East Pakistan, Hindus were treated not merely as citizens, but as suspects. During the 1965 India–Pakistan war, they were openly branded as disloyal.
Laws such as the so-called “enemy property” provisions allowed the state to seize Hindu-owned land, homes and businesses under a veneer of legality. Riots erupted periodically. Fear became routine. Migration became survival.
1971: Liberation, and a Broken Promise
In 1971, the Pakistani army launched a genocidal campaign in East Pakistan. Hindus were deliberately targeted, accused of being pro-India. Villages were destroyed, women assaulted, families wiped out. Millions fled into India as refugees.
It was India that intervened militarily after months of humanitarian catastrophe. Under decisive leadership, Indian forces defeated Pakistan in just 13 days. On December 16, 1971, Pakistani troops surrendered in Dhaka, and Bangladesh was born.
India not only liberated the country but also helped establish a new state under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, founded on the promise of secularism and equality. For Hindus, independence initially felt like a rescue. In 1974, they still formed about 13.5 per cent of the population.
That promise did not last.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman himself was assassinated. Coups replaced democracy. Military rulers reshaped the state.
In 1988, Islam was declared the state religion. Though secularism was later restored on paper, minorities were left exposed in practice.
Living in the Shadow of Fear
Violence against Hindus returned in waves—often after elections, often triggered by events in India, often justified by rumours. Temples were vandalised. Homes were burned. Cases were filed, but justice was rare.
In Old Dhaka today, Hindu life survives in cramped lanes and tightly packed neighbourhoods.
Temples appear every few steps. Gold shops dominate Hindu livelihoods—gold as business, but also as portable security. Savings stay in metal because trust in institutions is fragile.
Hindus and Muslims live side by side, yet apart. Officially, there is peace. Quietly, Hindus say otherwise.
An estimated 80–85 per cent of Dhaka’s Hindus live in concentrated pockets—not by law, but by instinct. Safety lies in familiarity. Escape routes matter.
By 2011, Hindus were about 8.5 per cent of the population. By 2022, around 7.95 per cent. Each riot pushes another family out. Each killing convinces another generation that the future lies elsewhere.
Not Accidents, Not Anomalies
The recent killings—of Dipu Chandra Das, Amrit Mandal and Bajendra Biswas—are not tragic mistakes.
They are the latest confirmation of a reality Hindus in Bangladesh have long understood: their safety is conditional.
These were not spontaneous riots. They were lynchings. Accusation. Crowd. Silence.
Hindus in Bangladesh are not intruders. They are history. Their roots lie in ancient capitals, in temples, in markets, in the cultural fabric of Bengal itself.
Yet they are steadily being erased—from census tables, from neighbourhoods, from memory.
The irony is stark. A land liberated with India’s help, founded on secular ideals, has become increasingly inhospitable to one of its oldest communities.
The question now is not about history. It is about conscience.
Will this land remember all its people—or allow fear, violence and indifference to complete what Partition and persecution began?
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