Police reward announced in Chattogram hindu home fire

Bangladesh police announced a reward for information on attackers who set on fire a Hindu-owned house near the southeastern port city of Chattogram, as mob violence emerged as a major crisis in the changed political landscape. Chattogram range’s police chief Ahsan Habib offered the bounty on Wednesday night without specifying the amount during his visit to the burned-down house of Qatar expatriate workers Shukh Shil and Anil Shil at Raojan area on the outskirts of the city, Ittefaq newspaper reported on Thursday.

According to reports, unidentified miscreants set the home on fire on Tuesday night, but the residents managed to come out of the house unharmed. Family members said they woke up after sensing the heat of the fire in the predawn hours, but were initially unable to come out as the doors were locked from the outside. The eight members of the two families escaped the burning house after cutting through tin sheets and bamboo fencing.

A series of arson attacks targeting the homes of Hindu families took place in the past week in the same area. Police said they have arrested five suspects and formed a “special security team” to ensure safety in the neighbourhood, The Business Standard newspaper reported.  “Houses of seven Hindu families were burned in three separate localities (at Raojan)” in five days, the report read. Raozan Police Station chief Sajedul Islam said so far, five suspects were arrested in police raids, and manhunts were underway for others.

The police held a meeting with local influential people to ensure interfaith harmony and social vigilance against perpetrators of such “heinous crimes”. A mob last week lynched 28-year-old Hindu factory worker Dipu Chandra Das in central Mymensingh over alleged defamation of the religion, sparking a widespread protest in the country. Muhammad Yunus’ interim Government said it would take care of the minor child, wife and parents of Das.

Police and other law enforcement agencies said they arrested 12 of the mobbers so far, while a senior adviser to the Government visited the bereaved family to offer support. The mob violence and arson attacks exposed Bangladesh to a sense of fright, especially after the death of Inqilab Mancha leader Sharif Osman Hadi at a Singapore hospital six days after he was shot by masked gunmen in Dhaka.

The mob set alight the offices of the mass circulation Daily Star and Prothom Alo and two leading cultural groups, Chhayanot and the Udichi Shilpi Goshti, which were founded in the 1060s. Yunus’ office in a statement on Tuesday said “allegations, rumours or differences of belief can never excuse violence, and no individual has the right to take the law into their own hands”. But a leading rights group, Ain o Salish Kendra, said their report suggested 184 people were killed in mob violence across the country in 2025.

The incidents gradually drew extra attention with international rights groups and media, with Amnesty International earlier this week condemning the mob violence and demanding immediate Government action to halt it. “The interim Government must take immediate steps to hold perpetrators of acts of violence and killings accountable in a fair trial without recourse to the death penalty,” the statement read.

The New York Times, in an analysis in August 2025, said the ouster of prime minister Sheikh Hasina in a student-led violent movement dubbed July Uprising resulted in a “political vacuum” causing the emergence of radical rightwing forces in the social arena. The Guardian of the UK on Wednesday ran an analysis titled “How hope is fading: the mobs bringing violence back to the streets of Bangladesh”.

Section within Yunus govt plotted Osman Hadi’s killing to derail elections, says brother

Dhaka: Bangladesh’s slain radical leader Sharif Osman Hadi’s brother has alleged that a section within the interim Government of Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus plotted the killing to derail the upcoming general election. Hours after his claim, Md Khuda Baksh Chowdhury, Special Assistant (Ministry of Home Affairs) to the Chief Adviser, resigned from the position. “It is you who got Osman Hadi killed, and now you are trying to foil the election by using this as an issue.

Those who are in power when Osman Hadi was killed, you won’t be able to evade the responsibility,” Hadi’s brother Omar Hadi told a protest rally in the capital staged by Inqilab Mancha on Tuesday. Omar said that the Government must “immediately expose the entire group involved” in his brother’s killing to the nation. Hadi, a staunch critic of India alongside the Awami League, was one of the leaders of last year’s violent student-led street protest dubbed the July Uprising that toppled the Hasina-led Government and later floated the Inqilab Mancha.

The Cabinet division issued a notification, saying the President has accepted the resignation of Chowdhury, a former police chief. “Md Khuda Baksh Chowdhury, special assistant (Ministry of Home Affairs) to the chief adviser, has resigned from his post. The president has accepted his resignation,” an official statement said. Hadi, a candidate for the scheduled parliamentary election in February, was shot in the head by masked gunmen on December 12 in Dhaka. Six days later, he died at a Singapore hospital.

Omar alleged that a section of the Government got his brother killed at the direction of an “agency or country”. He said Hadi wanted the national election to be held by February and asked authorities not to disrupt the election environment. The Inqilab Mancha has demanded the immediate resignation of Home Adviser Jahangir, Law Adviser Asif and Khoda Baksh, holding them accountable for the murder. The law adviser has promised to hold the trial in Bangladesh’s Speedy Trial Tribunal, which requires hearings to be completed in 90 days. After Hadi’s death, mobs in Dhaka staged a mayhem, setting alight the main offices of mass circulation Prothom Alo and Daily Star newspaper, two progressive cultural groups Chhayanat and Udichi Shilpi Goshthi in Dhaka.