Hindu trader stabbed to death in Bangladesh
A 62-year-old Hindu trader was hacked to death by unidentified men inside his shop in Trishal upazila of Mymensingh in Bangladesh, a local media report said on Tuesday. The incident took place on Monday night at the Bogar Bazar intersection in the Upazila, Trishal Police Station chief Muhammad Firoz Hossain was quoted as saying by news portal bdnews24.Com. The victim, identified as Susen Chandra Sarkar, was the owner of ‘Bhai Bhai Enterprise’ and a resident of Southkanda village, he said.
Hossain said the attackers hacked Sarkar with a sharp weapon, left him inside the shop, and closed the shutters. Sarkar’s family was searching for him, and when they opened the shutters to the shop, he was found covered in blood. Sarkar was rushed to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, where doctors declared him dead. “We have had a rice business for a long time. No one had any enmity with us. The criminals stole several hundred thousand taka from the store after they brutally killed my father,” Sujan Sarkar, the victim’s son, said.
He demanded that his father’s killers be identified quickly and given exemplary punishment. Sarkar’s murder is the latest incident of violence targeting the minority community. The Hindu population in Bangladesh has been affected by a series of incidents after the killing of radical youth leader Sharif Osman Hadi in December. Last month, the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council alleged that as the date of the general elections draws nearer, communal violence is increasing at an alarming rate in the country.
The Council said it recorded 51 incidents of communal violence in December 2025 alone. Bangladesh will hold parliamentary elections on February 12 - the first since the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in massive country protests in August 2024. According to the 2022 census, the Hindu population in Bangladesh is approximately 13.13 million, which accounts for about 7.95 per cent of the country’s total population.
