As the year ends, Bangladesh’s story is one of shattered expectations. Sheikh Hasina’s ouster last August, after weeks of student-led protests, seemed to herald a new chapter.
The interim administration under Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was embraced as a moral corrective to decades of authoritarian excess, promising to end revenge politics.
Yet, as the nation heads closer to the polls on February 12, 2026, the lived reality is that violence has not abated but become tolerated, even routinised, as part of Bangladesh’s political and social fabric.
The in Dhaka on December 18, following the assassination of Sharif Osman Hadi, a radical leader of the Inquilab Moncho and a key figure in the 2024 uprising, underscored the fragility of the interim government’s grip on law and order. Hadi’s death became a catalyst for unrest, but the violence that followed exposed the present-day metastasis of mob justice into everyday life.
The lynching of Dipu Chandra Das, a Hindu factory worker falsely accused of “hurting religious sentiments”, was a grotesque reminder of how barbarism has seeped into the fabric of society. Das was beaten, hung from a tree and set ablaze on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway, with factory management complicit in handing him over to the mob.
The same night, leading newspapers Prothom Alo and the Daily Star were attacked, vandalised and set on fire while journalists worked inside. Nurul Kabir, president of the Editors’ Council, described the assault as an attempt to kill journalists “in a medieval manner”.
Unidentified assailants also torched the Chhayanaut cultural centre in Dhaka, striking at the heart of Bangladesh’s artistic heritage.
The youth-led mobilisations of last year, directed against entrenched structures of injustice and culminating in the removal of Hasina, appeared to signal a potential reorientation in the political consciousness of Bangladeshi protesters. Yet, the absence of fundamental reforms in political culture, coupled with the persistence of violence whether directed at rivals or minorities, indicates that they have not yet engaged with the deeper politico-economic structures that sustain systemic dysfunction.
Human rights organisations have documented the persistence of state repression under Yunus’s interim administration. Rights organisation ‘Ain o Salish Kendra’ recorded 35 extrajudicial killings between January and October 2025, while ‘Odhikar’ reported over 40 in 14 months, including deaths by torture and custodial abuse. Arbitrary detentions under counter-terror laws remain widespread, and the harassment of journalists has reached alarming levels, with more than 350 incidents in ten months per one estimate.
The scale may be smaller than under Hasina, but the structural patterns remain unchanged: entrenched policing culture, institutional impunity and a state apparatus unwilling or unable to reform. A recent study, ‘High Risks, Low Preparedness: Journalist Safety in 2026 Elections,’ revealed that almost 89% of journalists surveyed anticipate physical assault while covering the polls, a chilling indictment of the poll environment.
What is more troubling is the expansion of violence beyond state actors. Mob justice, arson and targeted killings now supplement official repression, creating a dual system of abuse.
The murder of BNP leader Belal Hossain’s seven-year-old daughter, trapped in a house fire set by unidentified assailants, illustrates how political rivalry has descended into acts of barbarism that transcend ideology. On December 9, two Jubo Dal activists were shot in Cox’s Bazar; on December 22, labour leader Mohammad Motaleb Sikder was attacked in Khulna.
Each incident erodes public trust in the interim government, which has failed to offer protection to citizens caught between state violence and social brutality.
Minorities face heightened insecurity as radical Islamic influence re-emerges in politics, undermining religious freedoms and emboldening leaders who inflame anti-Indian sentiment for electoral gain. Just days before Das’s lynching, Hindu fish trader Utpal Sarkar was killed in Faridpur District, another chilling marker of minority vulnerability.
The interim government’s inability to protect Hindu communities has deepened scepticism and strained relations with New Delhi. India’s dilemma is stark: its default support for Hasina’s Awami League has been replaced by a dispensation hostile to New Delhi.
A report by India’s parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, chaired by Shashi Tharoor, identified the political shift in Bangladesh as . The spectres of visa restrictions, border violence, irregular migration and economic retaliation looms large.
Yunus, once seen as a moral beacon, now finds himself in a contradictory position. To gain legitimacy, he has provided space to new political entities and student leaders, yet he has used repression against Awami League cadres despite portraying himself as inclusive.
The interim government, though perhaps well-intentioned, suffers from glaring inefficiency against mob violence. The Human Rights Support Society reported at least 156 people killed and 242 injured in 276 mob violence incidents between January and November 2025, averaging 14 deaths a month.
Economic distress compounds the crisis. Job losses, shrinking investor appetite, falling exports and stalled growth have deepened despair.
Inter-party conflict stems from a political culture of intolerance and arrogance. Disagreements over the Awami League’s participation in the polls have sharpened divisions: while BNP leaders support inclusion, student activists and Jamaat-e-Islami leaders vehemently oppose it, framing participation as ‘foreign’ interference.
Even as the International Crimes Tribunal issued an arrest warrant against Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed, the return of BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman to Dhaka on December 25 was a dramatic moment. Hundreds of thousands of supporters converged to welcome him.
At the same time, the Jamaat-e-Islami, having allied with eight like-minded parties, has succeeded in projecting itself as relatively corruption-free and modest, an image that may give it a strategic advantage in the election.
It has also sought alignment with the student-led National Citizen Party, which, despite being the country’s first student-driven political formation, has drawn widespread criticism for its illiberal position on LGBTQ rights and several incidents of its abuse of power. Together, these developments underscore the intensity of the contest ahead.
Election commissioner Abul Fazal Mohammad Sanaullah has called the February polls a “tone-setting” moment for Bangladesh’s democratic journey. Yet the stakes are not merely partisan. The contradiction at the heart of Bangladesh’s present crisis is stark. A struggle radicalised at the grassroots confronts a leadership that is reformist at best, ineffectual at worst.