A Hindu businessman was brutally murdered by unknown assailants in Bangladesh on the night of February 9, two days before the South Asian country votes for its national parliamentary elections.
The incident took place in the Mymensingh district of Bangladesh, where another Hindu man, Dipu Chandra Das, was also lynched and burnt.
The victim, 62-year-old Sushen Chandra Sarkar, was a rice trader and a resident of Dakshinkanda village. He owned “Bhai Bhai Enterprise” at the intersection of the Bogar Bazar in the sub-district.
According to the police, the murder happened at 11 pm at the intersection of the market. Unknown assailants allegedly hacked Sarkar with a sharp weapon, left him inside the shop and closed the shutters. They also stole lakhs of rupees from the shop after murdering Sarkar.
Sarkar’s family found him covered in blood inside the shop while searching for him, the police said. He was rushed to the Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, where doctors declared him dead.
Sujan Sarkar, the victim’s son, said that the murderers stole money from the shop after killing his father. “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”, he said.
Sujan said that the body is in the hospital morgue for postmortem examination and legal action is in process and demanded that his father’s killers should be identified soon and punished.
With Bangladesh heading into national elections on Thursday, mounting international concern is focusing on the deteriorating condition of the country’s Hindu minority under the interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus.
Human rights advocates warned that persistent violence, intimidation, and forced displacement of Hindus have intensified since the political transition of August 2024, raising serious questions about minority safety and democratic credibility ahead of the polls.