Hundreds of persons associated with Hindutva groups staged a demonstration outside the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi on Tuesday against communal violence in that country, including the recent lynching of a Hindu man, PTI reported.

Some of the protestors were associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal.

Several persons were detained by the Delhi Police after the disruption in the high-security diplomatic zone, ANI reported.

The authorities had deployed additional police and paramilitary personnel and erected three layers of barricades around the mission in anticipation of the protest, PTI reported. Despite this, the police still reportedly struggled to contain the crowd.

A Hindu man, Dipu Chandra Das, was beaten to death in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh district on Thursday night by a mob that accused him of blasphemy. His body was allegedly tied to a tree and set on fire. Seven persons have been arrested in the case so far.

Advertisement

He was killed amid widespread unrest in Bangladesh following the death of student leader Sharif Osman Bin Hadi, who succumbed to gunshot injuries at a hospital in Singapore on Thursday.

Hadi was a prominent leader in the 2024 student protest that led to the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government.


Here is more on this and other top updates:

  • Protests similar to the ones in Delhi were also held outside the Bangladesh Visa Application Centre in West Bengal’s Siliguri on Monday, The Statesman reported. Bangladesh has since suspended all consular services at its missions in Delhi and Agartala.
  • Bangladesh’s foreign ministry on Tuesday summoned the Indian envoy in the country to express concerns about the security of its missions in India, Hindustan Times reported. The foreign ministry said it condemned “such acts of premeditated violence or intimidation against diplomatic establishments, which not only endanger the safety of diplomatic personnel but also undermine the principles of mutual respect and values of peace and tolerance”. 
  • Hindu leaders in Bangladesh on Monday held a human chain-protest in Dhaka, seeking justice for Das and alleging that the government had failed to protect minorities, The Daily Star reported. Manindra Kumar Nath, the joint coordinator of the Minority Unity Front, said that while Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus claimed that he was building a humane country, he was in reality “an inhumane chief adviser”. 
  • The Secretary-General of the United Nations also expressed concern on Monday about the violence in Bangladesh. “We’re very concerned about the violence that we’ve seen in Bangladesh,”  Stéphane Dujarric, the UN chief’s spokesperson said. “Whether it’s in Bangladesh or any other countries…people who don’t belong to the ‘majority’ need to feel safe and all Bangladeshis need to feel safe.”

Also Read: Opinion: What India must do to help restore stability in Bangladesh