Another Hindu Man dies after mob attack in Bangladesh

A Hindu businessman in Bangladesh’s Shariatpur district died after a mob attack, marking the second such incident in a week. The case has heightened concerns about rising violence against minorities, with police investigating and seeking to arrest those responsible.

Dhaka: As violence against minorities escalates in Bangladesh, another Hindu man has died on Saturday after being brutally attacked by a mob of miscreants in Damudya upazila of Shariatpur district, local media reported.

The victim, Khokon Chandra Das, a businessman from Damudya, was hacked and critically injured before the assailants poured petrol on him and set him on fire earlier this week.

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The incident occurred near Keurbhanga Bazar in Kaneshwar Union of Damudya late on Wednesday. He succumbed to his injuries while undergoing treatment at the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery in Dhaka on Saturday morning.

“We have received information that Khokon Chandra Das, a businessman from Keurbhanga Bazar, has died while undergoing treatment in Dhaka. We are in touch with Shahbagh Police Station in Dhaka. The body will be handed over to the family members after the autopsy. And the police are trying to arrest the accused in the case filed in that incident,” Bangladesh’s Bengali newspaper Kalbela quoted Damudya Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Mohammad Rabiul Haque as saying.

Citing sources at Damudya police station, the leading Bengali daily in Bangladesh, ‘Prothom Alo’, reported that Khokon runs a medicine and mobile banking business in Keurbhanga Bazar.

He was returning home in a CNG-powered auto rickshaw after closing his shop on Wednesday night with the day’s earnings when miscreants stopped the vehicle near Keurbhanga Bazar on the Damudya-Shariatpur road, hacked and injured him and then poured petrol on his head and set him on fire.

According to his nephew, Prant Das, Khokon had been undergoing treatment at the National Burn and Plastic Surgery Institute in Dhaka since late Thursday night. His condition deteriorated in the early hours of Saturday, and he died while receiving treatment in the Intensive Care Unit.

Speaking to Prothom Alo, Bidhan Sarkar, the department head of the burn unit at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said that Khokon was initially treated at Dhaka Medical College with burns covering about 30 per cent of his body.

He was later shifted to the National Burn and Plastic Surgery Institute for advanced medical treatment, where he died on Saturday morning while undergoing treatment. Khokon’s death marked the second such act of brutality on another Hindu man in the span of a week.