With Durga Puja 2026 still four weeks away, at least 10 temples and idols in Bangladesh have reportedly been vandalized, according to Bappaditya Basu, the exiled organizing secretary of the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council. Posts on X list the affected sites, including centuries-old temples. Basu estimates that at least 500,000 Bangladeshi Hindus have left the country in the past two years, most reaching India through legal and irregular channels.
Durga Puja is the Bengal delta’s largest Hindu festival, celebrated in Bangladesh and India’s West Bengal. The region’s short autumn brings clear skies and mild weather after the monsoon, making it one of the most peaceful periods of the year on the Indian side. In Bangladesh, however, the Hindu minority faces what the report describes as an escalating cycle of temple vandalism, discrimination and violence.
Basu said requests for migration assistance have risen sharply. “A year ago, I used to receive information about five to seven families migrating every day. These days, I get an average of 25 calls daily from people seeking to migrate,” he said.
Basu attributes part of the recent increase to the August killing of Ganapati Chakraborty, a 65-year-old retired teacher, his wife, their 23-year-old daughter and their 12-year-old son in Rangpur. Police blamed two younger relatives who were related to the family, alleging that they acted under the influence of methamphetamine, known locally as Yaba. The suspects were beaten during questioning, but no drugs were found in their blood, according to the report.
Locals alleged that the mother and daughter were raped and the boy was forcibly circumcised before being murdered. Police denied those allegations. Mortuary attendants later claimed in a secretly recorded video that they found semen in the women and showed it to the doctor who conducted the post-mortem.
The death of senior journalist Pulak Chatterjee is also disputed. Police said he died by suicide after being found hanging in his office, but columnist Anisur Rahman alleged in a September 16 column in Ittefaq that he had been killed.
Other cases cited include Piyal Biswas, a student from Habiganj who was expelled after appearing in a Facebook photograph with three Muslim women, and Nihar Biswas, whose family was attacked after he was accused of supporting Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League.
Authorities have also arrested Haridas Chandra Tarani Das and others over an 81-foot temple built with private financing on private land, prompting a financial-embezzlement case. With houses reportedly burned in Jashore and Chattogram, many Hindus now face Durga Puja amid growing fears rather than celebration.
Original Source: https://nenews.in/articles/when-a-festival-becomes-a-nightmare/66438/
Category: Articles,Bangladesh,Bangladesh Hindu,Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council,Durga Puja,vandalism
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Publish Date: 2026-10-03 17:23:00
