Saturday, 20 December 2025
Saturday, 20 December 2025
Bangladesh tightened security on Saturday, deploying police and paramilitary forces in the capital Dhaka ahead of funeral prayers for slain youth leader and election candidate Sharif Osman Hadi whose death has sparked a surge of violence.
The unrest after the shooting death of Hadi has included coordinated mob attacks on major newspapers and cultural institutions.
A Hindu man named Dipu Chandra Das, 25, was lynched in Mymensingh for which seven men men have been arrested, according to a statement from Muhammad Yunus, chief adviser to the interim government, on Saturday.
Das was beaten to death by a mob and his body set on fire over alleged blasphemy in Mymensingh city on Thursday. Taslima Nasreen, the Bangladeshi writer who is in exile in India, alleged in a social media post that Das was framed by a coworker who wanted to punish him over some trivial matter.
According to the police, Das, a factory worker, was first beaten up by a mob outside the factory over blasphemy allegations and hanged from a tree.
In a statement on X, Yunus said that the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested seven individuals as suspects in the case. The arrests were made during operations at various locations, and the ages of those arrested range from 19 to 46, the statement said.
Hadi, 32, a key figure in the student-led uprising last year that toppled longtime Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was shot in the head by masked assailants in Dhaka last week while launching his campaign.
He died on Thursday night in Singapore after six days on life support.
“The prime suspect in Osman Hadi’s killing is Faisal Karim Masud, a former leader of the Chhatra League [currently banned], the student wing of the ousted Awami League,” a Bangladeshi journalist told The Telegraph Online on Friday.
“It appears that Faisal joined Hadi’s campaign with the intention of killing him.”
Bangladesh is to elect a new parliament on February 12, a transition many hope will help the Muslim-majority nation of 175 million people recover from nearly two years of instability and reclaim its position as a regional success story.
Rights groups condemn killing, attacks on media
But frequent bouts of violent protests and political wrangling among disparate groups including Islamist hardliners have punctured the national sense of euphoria that arose after Hasina was ousted in August 2024.
It has also exposed the limitations of the interim government of Nobel Peace Prize winner Yunus, analysts say, raising questions over his grip on governance in the world's largest apparel producer after China.
Yunus's government, which declared Saturday a day of state mourning for Hadi, urged citizens to resist "mob violence by fringe elements", warning that turmoil threatens Bangladesh’s fragile democratic transition.
Human Rights Watch called Hadi’s killing a “terrible act” and urged the government to act urgently to halt the violence that has gripped the country since Hasina's ouster.
The group also condemned the attacks on media as an assault on free expression.
Bangladesh ranks 149th of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index. Rights groups warn that continued attacks on journalists and activists could further shrink civic space ahead of the election.
Amnesty International urged prompt, independent investigations into Hadi's killing and the subsequent violence, including the burning of newspaper offices and harassment of journalists.
Demonstrations continued on Friday in the Shahbagh area of the capital, where crowds demanded justice for Hadi and accountability for the attacks. A mob stormed the Dhaka office of Udichi Shilpigosthi, Bangladesh’s premier progressive cultural organisation.
The violence has spread beyond the capital. In Chittagong, protesters attacked the Indian Assistant High Commission, reflecting growing anti-India sentiment since Hasina fled to New Delhi after her ouster.
Her party, the Awami League, which has been barred from the election, has threatened unrest that some fear could derail the vote.
(with inputs from Reuters)
