When he was alive, Dipu Chandra Das (32) never thought of moving to India. His father and cousin vouch for his loyalty towards Bangladesh. But his death, the result of a mob lynching, has sparked a major upheaval in the sub-continent, stoking a diplomatic standoff between Dhaka and New Delhi.
An Islamist mob allegedly lynched Mr Das in Mymensingh district’s Bhaluka on the night of December 18th, accusing him of insulting Prophet Muhammad.
The timing of Mr Das’s murder made it a crucial geopolitical event.
It was the same night Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka went up in flames, as an Islamist mob, allegedly patronised by Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, attacked newspaper offices and cultural centres to protest the death of a far-right Islamist activist, Sharif Osman Hadi.
However, Mr Das’s father and cousin claimed that the blasphemy allegations were fake, and he was killed over a wage dispute at the garments factory where he was employed.
According to reports, none of Mr Das’s accomplices had heard him utter anything derogatory against Prophet Muhammad. It’s alleged that his Hindu identity has been used by the management of Pioneer Knitwears BD Ltd factory in the Jamirdia area to incite mob violence.
After Dhaka took cognisance of the offence, soon after the video of the mob lynching went viral, a joint operation by the police and Rapid Action Battalion led to the arrest of over 12 suspects until Sunday, December 21st.
The police denied the allegations that Mr Das was snatched from their custody and then lynched. The police officials have claimed that they received the information after several hours.
Dipu Das’s father, Robi Chandra Das, and sister, Champa Das, have cried foul. They have informed the press that Dipu Das had been entangled in a dispute with his employers. The dispute stemmed from the management’s decision to increase production targets without hiking the wages. According to the Das family, the former Awami League-associated management has twisted the facts to incite a mob. Dipu Das’s cousin Apu Chandra Das has lodged a complaint regarding this, following his murder.
Soon after it came to light that the management of Pioneer Knitwears was involved in stoking mob violence against Dipu Das, the left-wing forces, under the aegis of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), staged protests across Mymensingh and across Bangladesh.
However, concealing the facts, India’s ruling Hindutva bloc has been utilising the rift within Bangladesh to incite Islamophobia.
A group of Hindutva activists breached the security at the Bangladesh Embassy in New Delhi’s high-security Chanakyapuri area, Dhaka alleged. They were protesting Dipu Das’s mob lynching in Bangladesh.
On a social media post, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) raised an eerie alarm over the alleged breach, which India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) refuted.
The unjustifiable incident at the Bangladesh High Commission residence in New Delhi on 20 Dec 2025 is highly regrettable.@bdhc_delhi pic.twitter.com/XopXufH3dw
— Ministry of Foreign Affairs (@BDMOFA) December 21, 2025
Our response to media queries regarding the reported demonstration in front of the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi on 20 December 2025 ⬇️
— Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) December 21, 2025
🔗 https://t.co/tQ29y4EMbS pic.twitter.com/CgBqKqBYfp
The MEA had earlier summoned the Bangladeshi envoy, after a gang of Islamists staged a militant demonstration outside the Indian mission in Dhaka, and concerns have been raised regarding attacks on the Indian visa centre in Chittagong. Both countries have now temporarily halted visa processing.
Exhibiting the escalation, Bangladesh’s MFA has reportedly summoned the Indian envoy on Tuesday, December 23rd, to highlight its concerns following Saturday’s alleged breach. In an unprecedented move, the MEA also summoned the Bangladeshi envoy on the same day, under the pretext of a “tea invitation”.
Though the row erupted over the protests that followed Mr Hadi’s assassination, India has been using the optics of Mr Das’s murder to score diplomatic brownies.
The video of Dipu Das’s lynching has been circulating across India. Global Hindutva and Zionist networks are using the video to provide fodder to Islamophobic propagandists.
Exploiting the anti-India sentiment prevalent among a large section of Bangladeshis, the interim government has used the row over Mr Das’s mob lynching in its favour.
The alleged breach of security at Bangladesh’s mission in New Delhi has been used as a new rallying point to deflect the people’s attention from the deteriorating law and order situation and mob violence.
For India’s ruling dispensation, the situation is promising as well.
With Assam and West Bengal, two states with sizeable Bangladeshi Hindu migrants, going to polls next year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules Assam and eyes to seize West Bengal, benefits from the Islamist mob in the neighbouring country.
The BJP and its parental body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have been stoking Islamophobia in these states, as well as all over India, using Bangladesh as a subterfuge.
The spiralling anti-Bangladesh hatred is fuelling mob violence across India. A xenophobic mob in Kerala lynched a Hindu migrant worker from Chhattisgarh, suspecting him to be a Bangladeshi migrant.
The RSS-led greater Hindutva camp has been accused of fuelling anti-Muslim violence across India since Mr Modi’s ascension to power in 2014. RSS-affiliated organisations have lynched scores of Muslims over the allegation of consuming or transporting beef. Since 2018, the Modi government has stopped recording mob lynching incidents separately to evade responsibility and accountability. However, research has proved that the BJP and the RSS-led greater Hindutva universe have strong ties to the anti-Muslim violence in India.
Against this backdrop, the BJP has been hiding the skeletons in its closet and fuelling mass hysteria against Bengali Muslims by citing incidents in Bangladesh.
Although the CPB-led left bloc continues to agitate in Mymensingh and across Bangladesh, targeting the conspirators and questioning the government, the Indian far-right continues to associate the Indian left with Bangladesh’s Islamist forces.
Meanwhile, the far-right Islamist forces in Bangladesh continue to accuse the left forces protesting Mr Das’s lynching of being pro-Hindutva. As the far-right Hindutva and Islamist forces trade barbs, they continue to attack forces within each country that oppose mob violence, support workers’ rights, and express solidarity with victims of majoritarian fascism.
In this scenario, the diplomatic standoff between Bangladesh and India has helped the far-right forces in both countries to fuel jingoism and xenophobia.
While the two far-right camps continue to exploit the prevailing tensions, Dipu Chandra Das’s father, Robi Chandra Das, sister Champa Das and cousin Apu Chandra Das express their agony. Dipu Das left behind his wife and daughter in Mokamia Kanda village, Tarakanda Upazila of Mymensing. The family lurches into sheer darkness after losing its breadwinner. However, New Delhi’s propaganda machinery and Dhaka’s Islamist forces see a ray of light in this death.
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