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.
Bangladesh police have announced a reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for setting fire to a Hindu-owned house near the southeastern port city of Chattogram, as incidents of mob violence become a growing concern amid the country’s shifting political environment.
Chattogram range police chief Ahsan Habib made the announcement late Wednesday during a visit to the charred home of Shukh Shil and Anil Shil, expatriate workers based in Qatar, in the Raojan area on the city’s outskirts, the Ittefaq newspaper reported on Thursday. The amount of the reward was not disclosed. Reports said unidentified attackers torched the house on Tuesday night, though the occupants escaped without injuries.
Family members said they were jolted awake by the heat from the blaze in the early morning hours but were initially trapped inside as the doors had been locked from outside. All eight members of the two families managed to flee by cutting through tin sheets and bamboo fencing.
The attack was part of a broader pattern of arson in the area, with several Hindu households targeted over the past week. Police said five suspects have been arrested and a “special security team” has been formed to ensure safety in the neighbourhood.
According to the report, homes belonging to seven Hindu families were set ablaze across three locations in Raojan within five days.
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.
On the same evening, 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”.
With inputs from agencies
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