Bangladesh’s minority communities faced unrelenting terror in 2025, according to the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, which tallied 522 communal clashes—eclipsing the interim government’s modest count of 71. Led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, the administration’s downplaying of the crisis has ignited fierce backlash.
At a high-profile Dhaka media event, council’s interim chief Monindra Kumar Nath launched the year’s dossier, sourced from nationwide press and broadcasts. Key stats reveal devastation: 66 deaths, 28 gender-based violations including gang rapes, 95 desecrations of sacred sites, 102 property invasions targeting homes and shops.
The ledger grows darker with 38 kidnaps laced with shakedowns and torment; 47 menace cases of slay threats and assaults; 36 blasphemy-linked arrests with torture; and 66 land, home, business usurpations. Dhaka Tribune’s coverage amplifies these revelations.
Polling fever ahead of February 12 has failed to quell the storm: 42 flare-ups in late January alone packed 11 homicides, one sexual assault, nine holy site hits, and 21 thefts, blazes, grabs.
Nath captured the pathos: minorities poised to ballot, haunted by perils to life, work, wealth, respect. ‘Discouraging them pins responsibility on rulers, officials, EC, politicians,’ he asserted.
The council rebuked Yunus’s mid-January tweet logging 645 minority incidents, isolating 71 as sectarian while reclassifying 574 others. Nath ripped the logic: ‘Homicides, violations, incendiary raids, grabs, hits aren’t communal sans temple walls’—dubbing it ‘ludicrous misinformation.’
Targeted persecutions plague leaders too: Chinmoy Krishna Das jailed, council vets slapped with charges, spurring hideouts. Yunus-era governance has eroded security, ballooned anti-minority rage, galvanizing human rights outcry at home and abroad.
As votes near, this dossier demands reckoning, pressing for safeguards to ensure minorities’ voices aren’t silenced amid Bangladesh’s fragile peace.