A 27-year-old Hindu man, who was lynched before being burnt even as a large mob bayed for his blood at a public square in Bhaluka town of Mymensing district in Bangladesh, on December 19, was in police custody before the grisly act was committed.
Northeast News has ascertained that before a unit of the Rapid Action Battalion – RAB-14 – took over investigations into this barbaric act on December 20, Dipu Chandra Das was seen in widely circulated video, pleading and explaining himself, inside the chambers of Bhaluka police station Officer-in-Charge Humayun Kabir.
Several calls on Kabir’s official phone number did not elicit any response him.
Late on December 19, as violence erupted across many cities and districts of Bangladesh following the death in a Singapore hospital of Sharif Osman Hadi (whose real name was on December 20 revealed as Osman Goni), the convenor of the radical outfit Inquilab Mancha, Das was first attacked inside the premises of a garments factory where he worked.
Goni succumbed to grievous bran injuries suffered as a consequence of a bullet fired at him on December 12, the day the Bangladesh Election Commission declared February 12, 2026, as the day of general elections in Bangladesh. Two bike-borne assailants fired at him from close range at Culvert Road in the Purana Paltan area of Dhaka.
They have since not been traced with Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Additional Commissioner (Crime and Operations) Nazrul Islam saying on December 20 that there was evidence to suggest that the two assailants crossed over to India after a bullet fired by the pillion rider hit Goni in his head.
Videos available on social media show Das, dressed in a dark blue shirt, pleading with police officers, including Kabir, even as a crowd of angry men gathered outside the OC’s office chamber, demanded that he be handed over for allegedly blasphemy.
Moment before this, Das was seen surrounded by a large mob of workers inside a spacious room of Bhaluka-based Phoenix Knitting Ltd where he worked. Blows and kicks rained on Das who managed to somehow free himself before rushing to the police station to seek refuge.
Even as he managed to escape the factory workers’ wrath and took shelter inside Kabir’s chamber, he was either snatched away by the mob or given over by the police.
This is where events turned murky. On their part, RAB-14 officers, including Director Naimul Hassan, said that the factory management “handed over Das to the lynch mob who then dragged him to the square, hanged him and set him on fire”. It is alleged that there were signs of life in Das when petrol was poured on him and then set on fire. All this while, the mob shrieked and bayed till the flames consumed Das.
Addressing a press conference on December 20, Islam said that Das was given over to the mob by the Phoenix Knitting management when he was within the garments factory premises. Seven people, including the factory proprietor, have so far been arrested.
But evidence in the form of videos show that Das was inside the OC’s chambers before he was snatched away by the mob, taken to the Bhaluka square, tied to a pole, hanged and then set on fire.
