Bangladesh Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus has said that seven people have been arrested in connection with the lynching of a Hindu youth in Mymensingh district named Dipu Das over allegations of blasphemy.
In a post on X, the chief advisor wrote, “In the incident of beating to death Sanatan Dharma adherent youth Dipu Chandra Das (27) in Valuka, Mymensingh, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested seven individuals as suspects. The arrested individuals are— Md. Limon Sarkar (19), Md. Tarek Hossain, Md. Manik Mia, 4 Ershad Ali (39), Nijum Uddin (20), Alomgir Hossain, and Md. Miraj Hossain Akon.”
Yunus said the arrests followed coordinated action by RAB units in the area. “RAB-14 conducted operations at various locations and arrested the aforementioned suspects,” he said.
The action came two days after a mob accused Das, a garment factory worker, of making derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad and attacked him around 9 pm. They allegedly beat Dipu Chandra Das to death, tied his body to a tree, and set it on fire.
Police later arrived at the spot, brought the situation under control, and recovered the body.
The lynching occurred amid the widespread unrest that followed the death of youth leader Sharif Osman Hadi, a prominent figure of last year’s student-led July Uprising and spokesperson of the Inqilab Mancha. Hadi died on Thursday at a hospital in Singapore, where he was undergoing treatment after being shot in the head by masked gunmen in Dhaka on December 12.
On Friday, Bangladesh’s interim government strongly condemned the alleged lynching of a Hindu man in Mymensingh and renewed its appeal for restraint.
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In a statement issued by the Yunus administration, the government said, “We express deep condemnation over the incident in Mymensingh in which a Hindu man was beaten to death. There is no place for such violence in the new Bangladesh. No one involved in this brutal crime will be spared.”
