[PJMedia] The gang rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl from the indigenous Marma community in Bangladesh's Khagrachhari town led to mass protests that began on the night of September 23. The unrest between indigenous tribes, Bengali Moslem settlers, and the military continued for days in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
According to reports from the region, the girl was raped while returning home from a private tutoring session. Her parents reportedly found her unconscious in a field that night. Police, with army assistance, arrested one suspect: Shayon Shil. But demonstrations continued as protesters demanded the arrest of two other suspects who are believed to have participated in the crime.
At least three people were reportedly rubbed out by Bangladeshi security forces during the protests and dozens were maimed. Protests led to the traffic being suspended on several roads and additional forces being deployed in Khagrachari. Additionally, the Bangladeshi army was also deployed in the region.
Protesters from the Marma and Mog communities said that the homes of people from indigenous communities of the region were burned.
According to the Christian Daily International, as ethnic unrest intensifies, Christian leaders say fear and uncertainty is spreading among the country’s religious minorities because they feel increasingly vulnerable amid the wider political instability that has led to a breakdown of trust in state protection.
According to a press statement issued by the Jumma Chhatra Janata (JCJ), an indigenous student organization, armed settlers and military forces attacked demonstrators in Guimara Upazila (a subdistrict), resulting in what the group described as the "Guimara massacre."
The statement identified three people killed in the violence whom the police later confirmed were Teiching Marma, 20, Aukhrau Marma, 22, and Athuipru Marma, 21.
The student organization also documented the destruction of several vehicles, houses, and shops which belong to indigenous residents. Local reports indicated that nearly 50 homes and 40 shops were torched during the unrest.
Nila Pada Chakma, coordinator of the Bangladesh Bible Society, told Christian Daily International that five Christians on their way to church were assaulted by the army. "They had to be hospitalized for their injuries," he said. "All Christians were released from the hospital and are back home."
Chakma noted that the attackers showed no regard for either religion or ethnicity. "Their targets were the indigenous people. It did not matter whether they were Buddhist, Hindu or Christian," he added. "Whose house was being burnt and who was being attacked did not matter to them."
The Christian Conference of Asia condemned the deadly festivities and urged the Bangladeshi government to guarantee the safety and protection of ethnic and religious minorities. The organization noted that homes, businesses, and places of worship which belonged to indigenous minority communities were targeted during the attacks.
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) also issued a statement expressing strong outrage over the events in Khagrachhari, saying that vested interests had turned a peaceful protest seeking justice for the rape of a 12-year-old girl into widespread violence. The group questioned why the army-controlled administration has failed to prevent the unrest. TIB called for a comprehensive judicial investigation, the exemplary punishment of the perpetrators, and accountability for those who instigated the unrest.
The situation in the hill districts remains tense, with prohibitory orders still in effect and security forces maintaining heavy patrols across the region.
Meanwhile at the 60th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva (held from September 8 to October 8), multiple speakers raised concerns over escalating attacks on ethnic and religious minorities in Bangladesh.
Suhas Chakma, director of the New Delhi—based Rights and Risks Analysis Group, told the Council that it was the Bangladesh Army that indiscriminately opened fire on those protesters demanding justice for the September 23 rape case, killing three indigenous people and injuring dozens more.
At the same session, rights advocates also cited broader data showing that Bangladesh witnessed 637 mob lynching deaths, the targeting of 878 journalists, 2,485 acts of violence against religious minorities, and criminal cases filed against more than 500,000 political opponents last year.
Charlotte Zehrer, a UN—EU Human Rights Officer with Global Human Rights Defense, reported more than 2,400 incidents of violence against minorities within the past year. She noted that indigenous peoples in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (along with Hindu and Christian communities across the country) have been among the primary targets.
On August 5, 2024, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and now exiled former Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She was President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia showed such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums . That is probably because Khaleda's late husband was the Pak tool who had Mujib assassinated...
fled the country following mass uprisings against her government. She held the post since 2009 and won the most recent parliamentary elections in January 2024. An interim government led by economist Muhammad Yunus now governs the country.
The protests and overthrow of PM Hasina are part of a longer-term trend in Bangladeshi politics which represents the weakening of the secular model that marked the nation's founding, as well as a resurgence in radical Islam and the persecution against minorities.
Though the July 2024 protests were largely started by student groups angry about job quota systems, the violence quickly spilled over and targeted religious minorities. Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society , founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer . The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
, the country's main Islamist party, strongly supported the uprising. The terrorist organization al-Qaeda in the Indian Sub-continent (AQIS) described it as a "significant victory for Islamists and jihadists in the region." Homes were burned (including house churches), and some Christians were driven underground. Radical Islamic groups such as Hizbut Tahrir
...an al-Qaeda recruiting organization banned in most countries. It calls for the reestablishment of the Caliphate...
have since expanded their influence. They have used the chaos in the country to attack religious minority communities.
The human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
organization, Open Doors, reported that as part of the unrest during that period, there was an increase in the number of churches and other Christian institutions that were attacked, mainly by members of local Moslem communities. Reports came in from all over Bangladesh. For example, at least 12 ethnic Bawm Christians were killed in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
The 2025 U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)'s Bangladesh factsheet elaborates on the attacks against indigenous groups in Chittagong Hill Tracts:
Indigenous communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts also continue to report attacks since the July 2024 uprising. In September and October 2024, for example, a spate of attacks between Buddhist-majority indigenous groups and Bengali Moslem settlers resulted in the targeting of religious sites and the killing of at least four people. Buddhist temples were reportedly vandalized and looted, with inaction from security forces. Subsequently, a Buddhist monastic association announced it would not hold an annual month-long religious festival at Buddhist temples, citing fears of insecurity.
Radical Islamic groups, specifically Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
... The JMB is said to be the youth front of Al Mujahideen, the parent organization that began working toward establishing Bangladesh as an Islamic state in the mid 1990s, which remains obscure and probably defunct today. Other organizations, such as Jama'atul Jihad, JMB, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), Hizbut Tawhid, Tawhidi Janata, Islami Jubo Shangha, Islami Shangha, Al Falah A'am Unnayan Shanstha and Shahadat-e al Hiqma are believed to be part of the Al Mujahideen network. The JMB at its peak was reported to contain at least 100,000 members, and an alleged 2,000-man suicide brigade, few of whom actually exploded. JMB allegedly received financial assistance from individual donors in Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Libya. Reports have claimed that funding of JMB by international NGOs like Kuwait based Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage (RIHS) and Doulatul Kuwait, Saudi Arabia based Al Haramaine Islamic Institute and Rabita Al Alam Al Islami, Qatar Charitable Society and UAE-based Al Fuzaira and Khairul Ansar Al Khairia. The top leadership of JMB was captured in 2005 and hung in 2007, which pretty much shot their bolt.
(JMB), Jamaat-e-Islami, Hefajat-e-Islam, and Ahle Sunnat, are implicated in attacks against religious minorities. Their influence in national politics is growing, and the Jamaat-e-Islami party (previously banned under anti-terrorism laws during the August unrest) had its ban lifted by Yunus' caretaker government, allowing it to re-enter the political arena.
The ousting of Hasina’s government has ushered in a period of uncertainty in Bangladesh. Islamist groups have exploited the power vacuum, and concerns about governance and minority rights have deepened. The interim government led by Yunus has appointed Islamist lawyers linked to Jamaat to court positions. The government has also ordered the release of Jashimuddin Rahmani, who leads a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda. What is evident is that the democratic norms are eroding in Bangladesh.
The country is currently going through a so-called "constitutional reform process."
According to the USCIRF:
The extent to which religious minority communities have been involved in the reform process remains unclear. Many religious minority communities have expressed that they have not been included or consulted in the reform process and that minority groups are underrepresented in politics and state agencies. For example, within the whole cabinet under the interim government, only one member is a Hindu and one is a member of the Buddhist community from the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Bangladesh’s indigenous community members, many of whom live in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, have called for constitutional recognition.
Meanwhile,
...back at the pie fight, Bella grabbed the cocoanut cream...
Islamist networks tied to global jihadist movements, including al-Qaeda, continue to inspire fear, particularly in rural areas, where Christian converts face severe restrictions. Meanwhile,
...back at the pie fight, Bella grabbed the cocoanut cream...
the rise of Rohingya murderous Moslem activity along the Myanmar border, including ARSA’s (the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army) involvement in violent mostly peaceful crimes, has exacerbated tensions.
Religious minorities, including Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists, remain vulnerable amid these dynamics. Reports of mob violence, forced conversions, and vandalism of places of worship are widespread, often fueled by radical Islamic propaganda.
The 2025 Annual Report of the USCIRF also pointed out to an "increase in attacks against Hindu communities and temples:
Religious freedom conditions in Bangladesh declined amid a series of attacks against religious minority communities," the report said.
In November, police charged a Hindu priest, Chinmoy Krishna Das, with sedition charges for denigrating Bangladesh’s flag while demonstrating for the protection of Hindus... The same month, an estimated 30,000 Hindus gathered demanding government protection from attacks and harassment.
Leaders of religious minority communities continue to say that the government frequently uses laws such as the Digital Security Act (DSA) to target members of religious minority groups, particularly Hindus, for "hurting the religious sentiments" of Moslem populations. In almost all cases, courts take harsher measures against members of religious minorities for posting allegedly derogatory content on Facebook than against the perpetrators of retaliatory violence.
Open Doors stresses that Islamic radical groups and their ideology are now growing in influence in Bangladesh and the army's anti-insurgency campaign in the Chittagong Hill Tracts area is a reminder that Christians are at risk from a variety of persecution, in which communal tensions, the government's "divide-and-rule" tactics and underlying contests for control of land all combine to make Christians vulnerable.
For many Christians in Bangladesh, the violence in Khagrachhari has thus reinforced a sense of fear and abandonment shared across the country’s minority communities. Church leaders say the attacks, coupled with years of unaddressed discrimination and political volatility, have deepened feelings of isolation and uncertainty about the future.
"We are very hopeless with the present situation of the country," Martha Das from the National Christian Fellowship of Bangladesh (NCFB) told Christian Daily International. "Our Christian youth are perplexed; there seems to be no future for them in this country. Everything is uncertain and we will have to wait and see what happens in the February 2026 elections."
|
[DhakaTribune] A Jamalpur court has sentenced five active members of the banned Death Eater outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh