Yunus govt plans major action as Bangladesh police announces reward for information on Hindu household attackers, police plans…

Dhaka: Bangladesh police announced a reward for information on attackers who set on fire a Hindu-owned house near the southeastern port city of Chattogram, as mob violence emerged as a major crisis in the changed political landscape.

Chattogram range’s police chief Ahsan Habib offered the bounty on Wednesday night without specifying the amount during his visit to the burned-down house of Qatar expatriate workers Shukh Shil and Anil Shil at Raojan area on the outskirts of the city, Ittefaq newspaper reported on Thursday.

According to reports, unidentified miscreants set the home on fire on Tuesday night, but the residents managed to come out of the house unharmed.

Family members said they woke up after sensing the heat of the fire in the predawn hours, but were initially unable to come out as the doors were locked from the outside. The eight members of the two families escaped the burning house after cutting through tin sheets and bamboo fencing.

A series of arson attacks targeting the homes of Hindu families took place in the past week in the same area. Police said they have arrested five suspects and formed a “special security team” to ensure safety in the neighbourhood, The Business Standard newspaper reported.

“Houses of seven Hindu families were burned in three separate localities (at Raojan)” in five days, the report read.

Raozan Police Station chief Sajedul Islam said so far, five suspects were arrested in police raids, and manhunts were underway for others. The police held a meeting with local influential people to ensure interfaith harmony and social vigilance against perpetrators of such “heinous crimes”.

A mob last week lynched 28-year-old Hindu factory worker Dipu Chandra Das in central Mymensingh over alleged defamation of the religion, sparking a widespread protest in the country. Muhammad Yunus’ interim government said it would take care of the minor child, wife and parents of Das.

Police and other law enforcement agencies said they arrested 12 of the mobbers so far, while a senior adviser to the government visited the bereaved family to offer support.

The mob violence and arson attacks exposed Bangladesh to a sense of fright, especially after the death of Inqilab Mancha leader Sharif Osman Hadi at a Singapore hospital six days after he was shot by masked gunmen in Dhaka.

On the same evening, the mob set alight the offices of the mass circulation Daily Star and Prothom Alo and two leading cultural groups, Chhayanot and the Udichi Shilpi Goshti, which were founded in the 1060s.

Yunus’ office in a statement on Tuesday said “allegations, rumours or differences of belief can never excuse violence, and no individual has the right to take the law into their own hands”.

But a leading rights group, Ain o Salish Kendra, said their report suggested 184 people were killed in mob violence across the country in 2025.

The incidents gradually drew extra attention with international rights groups and media, with Amnesty International earlier this week condemning the mob violence and demanding immediate government action to halt it.

“The interim government must take immediate steps to hold perpetrators of acts of violence and killings accountable in a fair trial without recourse to the death penalty,” the statement read.

The New York Times, in an analysis in August 2025, said the ouster of prime minister Sheikh Hasina in a student-led violent movement dubbed July Uprising resulted in a “political vacuum” causing the emergence of radical rightwing forces in the social arena.

The Guardian of the UK on Wednesday ran an analysis titled “How hope is fading: the mobs bringing violence back to the streets of Bangladesh”.