Blasphemy Accusations and the Days Religion Turned Deadly in 2025
Written and published on 21 December 2025
As this year comes to an end, Bangladesh is still counting losses that never should have happened.
In 2025, people were killed not because guilt was proven, but because an accusation was believed. In several cases, that accusation carried the weight of religion. Faith, which should protect conscience, became a shortcut to punishment.
This piece is written on 21 December 2025, while memories are still raw and justice remains uncertain. It is not written to provoke anger. It is written to demand clarity — and responsibility.
Faith Was Never the Enemy — Its Abuse Was
Religion has always shaped Bangladeshi society. For the vast majority of citizens, it is a personal moral compass, not a political weapon. Yet throughout 2025, in an atmosphere of weakened enforcement and social fear, religious accusations became one of the most dangerous triggers for mob violence.
Human-rights monitors documented multiple incidents this year where:
- Blasphemy accusations were made without evidence
- Crowds formed within minutes
- Violence escalated before verification
- Authorities arrived after harm was already done
Once accused, a person often had no chance to speak — only to survive.
This is not religious devotion.
This is law retreating under pressure.
A Death That Still Demands Answers: Dipu Chandra Das
18 December 2025 – Bhaluka, Mymensingh
Just three days ago, on 18 December 2025, Dipu Chandra Das, a young Hindu worker, was beaten to death in Bhaluka, Mymensingh.
He was accused by co-workers of making derogatory remarks about Islam. According to police statements and early investigations reported by the media, no evidence has so far supported the allegation.
That fact arrived after his death.
Dipu was attacked publicly. He later died from his injuries. As of today, 22 December 2025, his family waits for clarity — not only about who attacked him, but why protection never arrived in time.
His case matters because it exposes a brutal reality: once a crowd decides guilt, truth becomes irrelevant.
A Pattern Repeated Across 2025
Dipu’s killing did not occur in isolation.
Throughout 2025, organisations such as Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) documented mob attacks linked to religious or moral accusations. In many cases:
- Victims’ names were delayed or withheld
- Families were pressured into silence
- Legal processes stalled at the earliest stage
These incidents occurred in factories, villages, markets — places where daily life should be safest. Often, rumours spread through social media or mosque loudspeakers before violence followed.
This is how street-level extremism operates: not through ideology alone, but through speed, fear, and the belief that no one will be punished.
Extremism Does Not Rise Alone — It Is Allowed to Rise
Religious extremism in 2025 did not grow because faith grew stronger.
It grew because law enforcement grew slower, uncertain, and selective.
Each unpunished killing taught a lesson:
- Accusation creates authority
- Crowds replace courts
- Consequences are unlikely
When police intervene after death instead of before violence, deterrence collapses. When investigations produce no visible outcomes, mobs learn quickly.
Extremism does not always organise in cells.
Sometimes it gathers in daylight.
Silence Is a Choice
After most incidents this year, official responses followed a familiar script:
- Condemnation of violence
- Promises of investigation
- Appeals for calm
But justice is not declared.
It is enforced.
When arrests do not follow killings, silence becomes instruction. It tells the next crowd that violence works, and that fear carries more weight than law.
A society does not drift into mob rule by accident.
It learns it.
Who Paid the Price
The victims of religiously charged mob violence in 2025 were not powerful figures.
They were workers.
Students.
Minorities.
Ordinary people with no defence once labelled guilty.
Some families have already stopped speaking publicly. Others continue to wait for updates that never arrive. For them, promises of restored order feel distant and abstract.
Their reality is immediate.
This Was Not the Defence of Religion
No religion commands lynching.
No faith authorises mobs.
No belief replaces courts.
What Bangladesh witnessed in 2025 was not the defence of faith — it was the failure to protect faith from violence.
When religion is used to justify killing, both justice and belief are betrayed.
What This Teaches Us — Before the Year Ends
As of 21 December 2025, the year is not yet over, but its lesson is already clear.
Among the 293 people reported killed in mob violence this year, several were targeted after religious accusations. In some cases, faith was the motive. In others, it was the spark.
Justice for the dead requires honesty:
- Some lives were lost because accusations went unchecked
- Some because crowds felt untouchable
- Many because the state failed to act quickly and impartially
A society that allows faith to decide guilt has already surrendered justice.
Why This Series Exists
This series is being written so that memory replaces denial, and learning replaces silence.
If citizens are to choose the future carefully, they must confront the past honestly.
Faith must never stand above law.
And law must never surrender to mobs.
The next article in this series will examine how rumours and misinformation — often false, often amplified — turned ordinary people into executioners in 2025.
Because this year proved one painful truth:
Sometimes, a lie was enough to kill.
Note:
This image is AI-generated and used to reflect the atmosphere and message of the article. It is not a photograph from the actual incident, but a visual aid to help frame the context.