Islamists continue to persecute the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. This time, a mob of Islamic fundamentalists attacked the house of a Hindu teacher, Pritam Sarkar in Cumilla (Comilla) district. The mob accused him of ‘committing blasphemy and insulting Islam’, an allegation commonly used in Islamic nations to target minorities or settle personal scores. The mob demanded that the teacher be hung and his skin peeled.

This incident took place in Daudkandi Upazila of Cumilla on February 13, and a large police force had to be deployed to control the frenzied crowd. Pritam Sarkar is working as a teacher at Dr. Mosharf Hossain High School in Daudkandi.

People were alleging that Pritam had insulted Islam and its Prophet Muhammad while teaching his students. Upon receiving this ‘news’, the Islamic mob went berserk in a manner similar to how a false blasphemy allegation levelled at a Durga Puja pandal in Cumilla in 2021 became the pretext for a deadly country-wide pogrom against the Hindu minority.

As per the local police, a mob of radical Islamists surrounded the teacher’s house and demanded the teacher’s execution by chanting “Allahu Akbar.” There were even raising slogans to “skin Pritam alive.” Later, the police reached the scene and somehow brought the situation under control.

It should be noted that in recent times, Hindu teachers are being targeted and attacked in Bangladesh in the name of insulting Islam and its Prophet. Earlier on January 29, radical Islamists staged a march and demanded the hanging of science teacher Newton Sarkar in Jessore’s Abhaynagar upazila on charges of ‘insulting Islam’. The teacher was immediately dismissed from service upon receiving the blasphemy complaint.

According to an April 14 2022 report by Dhaka Tribune, a Hindu teacher employed at the Bhadreswar Nasir Uddin High School and College in Golapganj upazila of Sylhet had been accused of asking a student to remove her niqab and thereby commiting ‘defamation of Islam’. The teacher had been in hiding for more than a month after being framed in a smear campaign that started on social media.

In another incident, an acting principal of Mirzapur United College in Narail, Swapan Kumar Biswas, was forced to wear a garland of shoes by a mob of Muslim students for allegedly committing blasphemy. In another horrific incident, a Hindu teacher Utpal Kumar Sarker was beaten to death by a class 10 student of Haji Yunus Ali School and College in Savar.

The Bangladesh government has remained silent on this wave of Islamist violence against Hindus. Their Foreign Minister actually downplayed the 2021 Durga Puja pogrom as a ‘minor incident’, and the same was shockingly echoed by a senior Indian diplomat too. In most cases of Islamist mob violence, the local Awami League government leaders and workers are involved in targeting Hindus by framing fake blasphemy charges. Encouraged by this silence, and knowing Hasina’s need to pander to Islamist to prevent the even more hardline BNP-Jamaat opposition from gaining power, the Islamist attacks on Hindus are catching momentum across the nation.