Bangladesh erupts in protest after trader lynched in Dhaka

Dhaka: Protests have erupted across multiple college campuses and streets of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, following the brutal killing of a scrap metal trader, Lal Chand alias Sohag, in broad daylight near the Sir Salimullah Medical College (Mitford) Hospital on July 9.

According to local media reports, the 39-year-old trader was beaten and stoned to death with chunks of concrete by a group of assailants near the hospital’s third gate around 6 p.m. on Wednesday, allegedly for refusing to pay extortion money.

The killing, caught on camera and widely circulated on social media, triggered a wave of outrage.

Student organisations took to the streets in mass protests at institutions including Dhaka University (DU), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Jagannath University, Jahangirnagar University, and Rajshahi University on Friday.

Allegations have surfaced that members of the Jubo Dal, the youth wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), were involved in the lynching and carried out the attack over an extortion dispute, leading Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star reported.

Bin Yamin Molla, president of the Bangladesh Student Rights Council, told The Dhaka Tribune, “Today, students are protesting the murder of Sohag just as they did during the Awami League’s tenure. The BNP has failed to control its own leaders and activists. They were oppressed for the last 16 years, but if the oppressed now become the oppressors.”

DU student AB Zubayer echoed similar sentiments, accusing BNP activists of turning the country into a haven for extortionists and criminals.

“The BNP leaders and activists are committing acts of extortion, rape, and murder across the country,” he said.

Protesting students accused Jubo Dal members of stoning Sohag to death and then dancing on his body. The murder, they said, symbolises a collapse of law and order under the current BNP-backed regime.

Speakers at various protests slammed the BNP for failing to rein in its youth wings, who they claim are engaged in bloody internal clashes over extortion money and territorial control.

Demonstrators also claimed the BNP has been responsible for nearly 100 killings in the past ten months. They demanded that each death be investigated and justice ensured.

Ironically, another BNP-linked student faction — Bangladesh Jatiyotabadi Chhatra Dal — also marched at Dhaka University on Friday, calling for the killers to be brought to justice.

“Since Hasina’s fall, BNP leaders have been fighting among themselves over business control, leading to murders. BNP thinks expulsion is enough, but we demand they face trial,” said Saikat Arif, President of the Chhatra Federation, to The Daily Star.

Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s party, Awami League, also strongly condemned the lynching. In a post on X, the party wrote that the videos of the “brutal murders expose mobocracy under Yunus regime.”

The party further criticised the public’s inaction during the incident.

“Local businessmen and onlookers were standing around at the time of the incident, while some quickly left the spot, but no one came forward when over a dozen attackers took turns hitting Sohag with stones and bricks to ensure his death. Even the Ansar members in charge of the hospital gate were nonchalant,” it said.

The country reels from the shocking images of the lynching, and public pressure is mounting on the Muhammad Yunus-led interim administration and law enforcement to bring the culprits to justice.

IANS