Noted writer Taslima Nasreen narrated what happened with the Hindu garment factory worker, who was lynched by a mob in Bangladesh over blasphemy allegations amid unrest in the country.
Nasreen, who is originally from Bangladesh and has been living in a self-exile in India, claimed that the factory manager in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh forced 25-year-old Dipu Chandra Das to resign and handed him over to the mob.
“Dipu Chandra Das worked at a factory in Bhaluka, Mymensingh. He was a poor labourer. It was alleged that Dipu had made derogatory remarks about the Prophet of Islam. As a result, Muslim workers inside the factory prepared to punish him. The factory’s floor manager forced him to resign from his job. Then he handed Dipu over to the frenzied followers of the Prophet who were waiting outside the factory,” Taslima Nasreen wrote on X.
The acclaimed writer further said that the mob beat the man before hanging and burning him, calling it “a vile jihadist spectacle.”
“Dipu Chandra Das was the sole breadwinner of his family. His income supported his disabled father, his mother, his wife, and his child. What will happen to his relatives now? Dipu’s family does not even have the money to flee to India to save themselves from the hands of jihadists. The poor have no one, especially poor minorities. They have no country, even in their own country. They have no religion, even within religion itself,” she further wrote.
Ten people have been arrested in connection with the lynching, interim government chief adviser Muhammad Yunus said on Saturday. This comes amid continuing unrest and heightened security concerns across the country.
The lynching
The victim, Dipu Chandra Das, a 25-year-old factory worker, was lynched to death on Thursday in the Bhaluka area of Mymensingh over alleged blasphemy. According to police, Das was first beaten by a mob outside his workplace, hanged from a tree and later left by the side of the Dhaka–Mymensingh highway. The crowd subsequently set his body on fire.
The lynching comes against the backdrop of widespread unrest following the death of radical student leader Sharif Osman Hadi, who succumbed to gunshot injuries in a Singapore hospital on Thursday. His death triggered violent protests, some of which took on overt anti-India overtones.
The father of the deceased spoke up about the incident, expressing hopelessness in the aftermath.
Speaking to NDTV, Ravilal Das said his son’s body had been tied to a tree and set on fire. He said that the family had initially heard about the incident on Facebook, adding that it gradually became a topic of discussion among more people.
“We found out about it when someone told me he was beaten badly. Half an hour later, my uncle came and told me they took my son and they tied him to a tree,” NDTV quoted Ravilal as saying. While calling the incident “horrible”, he further said, “Then they poured kerosene on him and set him on fire. His burned body was left outside.”
The victim’s father also said that the Bangladesh government had not provided any “assurance”. “No one from the government has given any assurance. No one said anything,” Ravilal told NDTV