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The safety and protection of the religious minority communities, including Hindus, is at stake at the moment in Bangladesh. As a gruesome example, a 40-year-old Hindu was raped, tied to a tree, had her hair cut off and tortured until losing consciousness. While the motives are not clear, a possibility exists of a communal angle for the act.
Photo source: Nahmad Hassan, via Pexels, March 3rd, 2022.
16-01-2026 | Pauliina Majasaari | Asia Team Researcher, Global Human Rights Defence.
According to allegations, a 40-year-old Hindu widow was tied to a tree, her hair was forcibly cut, and two men gang-raped her in Kaliganj on January 3rd, 2026. The men recorded the act and shared it online, where it had circulated on social media platforms, worsening the trauma and humiliation. In addition, the accused tortured her until she lost consciousness. Such acts create grave concern for the right to be free from sexual violence and the right to be free from torture and inhumane treatment, both pivotal in ensuring and protecting human dignity.
Locals rescued her, and she was taken to the Jhenaidah Sadar Hospital, where the Hindu widow had not told the doctors of what had happened. However, after medical examinations, the doctors determined she had been subjected to abuse. Following this, she filed a complaint against the accused, Shahin and Hassan, at Kaliganj Police Station. According to police statements, they will take the highest legal action possible after investigations have been concluded.
As part of the Hindu widow’s complaint, she accorded of having bought land and a house from Shahin and Hassan around two and a half years ago. Shahin had been making inappropriate propositions to her, and when she had refused, he kept harassing her for two years. Shahin and Hassan had forcibly arrived at her home, demanding money from the Hindu widow, where two relatives of the widow had been present. Upon refusal to pay, the men assaulted her relatives, and consequently the assault and gang-rape occurred.
A foreign affairs expert, Shri Das Gupta, expresses her concern over the government’s lack of action on protecting minorities from such occurrences in the future, and rather its mere reaction to whether a crime has occurred or not. The underlying nature of such crimes is commonly disregarded, the lack of protection for the Hindu minority in Bangladesh, and the acknowledgement of the crime being related to the religion of the victim. Due to these absences, the Hindu widow did not tell the doctors initially of what had happened, as she did not want to shame herself, knowing that she would not receive protection or justice from the authorities.
According to the External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson of India, Randhir Jaiswal, “The unremitting hostilities against the minorities in Bangladesh, including Hindus, Christians and Buddhist, at the hand of extremists, is a matter of grave concern.” Since the tenure of Muhammad Yunus interim government, over 2,900 incidents of violence targeted against minorities have occurred, including killings, arson and land grab. Observers and rights groups have raised concern over the extremist elements embedded within the interim government’s administration, despite the authorities keep denying any communal pattern to the occurring violence. A troubling tendency of attributing the violence to personal rivalries or political indifferences seems to be present in the Bangladeshi administration, while a pattern of reoccurring attacks on minorities is present.
