In Islamic law, the dhimma is a covenant of protection extended to the People of the Book (originally Jews and Christians), and later to other non-Muslim communities living under Muslim rule, who received the state’s protection in return for loyalty and obedience. These protected non-Muslims (dhimmis) were required to pay the jizya tax and were exempted from military service, while living under legal and social restrictions that did not apply to Muslims. The protection was not only transactional but also revocable if the covenant was found to have been violated.[1]
Building on this, writer Bat Ye’or popularized the concept of dhimmitude from the 1980s onward to argue that, although dhimma as a legal institution has largely been abandoned in modern times, it survives as a permanent condition of subjection for non-Muslim minorities in Muslim-majority societies, reproduced through social and psychological conditioning.[2] On this reading, the discriminatory legal and political status and systemic marginalization of minorities as second-class citizens recreate the practice of dhimma in modern times without its legal framing. This paper uses dhimmitude as an analytical lens for describing a pattern of conditions. In Bangladesh, Hindus, the country’s largest religious minority, can be seen as living under such conditions, evident in their steady demographic decline, their legal, social, economic and political marginalization, intermittent communal violence linked to Islamist radicalism, and their persistent vulnerability at present.
Historical Background
Islam’s political advent in Bengal followed Bakhtiyar Khalji’s defeat of the Sena king, Lakshmana Sena, around 1204. Over the following centuries, conquest and, above all, the expansion of agrarian settlement into the forested eastern delta paved the way for a gradual demographic change in which Muslims became the majority, particularly in the east.[3] British colonial rule, with its policy of divide and rule, and the All-India Muslim League’s demand for separate Muslim homelands in the Lahore Resolution of 1940 set the terms for the Partition of India in 1947. While the Radcliffe Line partitioned the subcontinent, Bengal and Punjab paid the ultimate price, with impacts still visible today. The Bengal province was divided in two, and its eastern part, East Bengal, became part of Pakistan.
With the creation of Pakistan in 1947, the status of minorities, especially Hindus, became a point of contestation. Unlike India, which adopted a secular constitutional framework accommodating all religions and identities, Pakistan, within 19 months of its formation, adopted the Objectives Resolution (March 12, 1949), the foundational document of its later constitutions, which declared that sovereignty belongs to Allah and that the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice were to be observed “as enunciated by Islam.”[4] The resolution also addressed minority rights, stating that “adequate provision shall be made for the minorities freely to profess and practise their religions and develop their cultures.”[5] Hindu members of the Constituent Assembly, however, objected that subjecting universal rights to Islamic principles would pave the way for a theocratic state in substance, with two tiers of citizenship in which minorities were reduced to groups needing “protection.”[6]
Across every political transition, from Pakistani rule to the 1971 liberation and now post-uprising Bangladesh, the Hindu minority has faced renewed vulnerability and a political system that treats it largely as a vote bank.
Post-Jinnah Pakistan thus moved further toward a religiously defined state, consolidated in the 1956 Constitution, which proclaimed Pakistan an Islamic Republic and reserved the office of head of state for Muslims.[7] The Constitution was adopted on February 29, 1956, despite its rejection by all the Hindu minority parties and the Awami League, the largest Muslim party in East Pakistan.[8] Martial law, imposed in October 1958, abrogated the constitution and, with it, the fundamental rights and minority safeguards it guaranteed.[9] The Basic Democracies system, introduced in 1959, further limited Hindus’ political power, and the 1962 Constitution, which placed the political system under strong centralized control, weakened it again.[10]
The declining status of Hindus in East Pakistan was not, however, confined to constitutional exclusion. Communal violence recurred throughout the 1950s and 1960s, with little intervention by the state, triggering periodic mass exoduses of Hindus.[11] The West Pakistani establishment’s disdain for East Pakistan was reflected in a series of discriminatory measures, such as the attempted imposition of Urdu as the sole state language, economic disparity, and political marginalization, factors that laid the ground for the rise of Bengali nationalism.[12] The establishment’s treatment of Bengali language and culture as “Hinduized,” exemplified by the 1967 ban on Rabindranath Tagore’s works in state media, together with suspicions of Hindus’ “hidden influence” behind Bengali nationalism, contributed to the systematic targeting of Bengali Hindus, which reached its peak during the 1971 Liberation War.[13]
From the launch of Operation Searchlight on March 25, 1971, Hindus were specifically targeted by the Pakistan Army, which carried out massacres to kill them and drive them out of East Pakistan. The killing of roughly 10,000 people in Chuknagar (Khulna) and more than 2,000 in Dakra (Bagerhat), mostly Hindus trying to cross the border, the killing of more than 25,000 Hindus in the first three months after Operation Searchlight, and evidence of at least 42 incidents across the country in which Hindus were singled out form a part of the genocidal history of 1971 that often remains ignored.[14]
On April 6, 1971, the US Consul General in Dhaka, Archer Blood, sent a telegram to Washington, popularly known as the “Blood Telegram,” dissenting from US policy and describing the army’s actions against Bengalis and Hindus. In it, he accused their own government of what “many will consider moral bankruptcy” for siding with its Cold War ally, Pakistan, and remaining silent on genocide.[15] In another telegram, sent on April 8, 1971, Blood wrote that “‘genocide’ applies fully to [this] naked, calculated and widespread selection of Hindus for special treatment.”[16]
A Steady Pattern of Demographic Change
The demographic change of the Hindu population can be divided into two phases: a) a sharp, catastrophic decline driven by episodic communal violence between 1947 and 1971, and b) a steady but gradual decline after Bangladesh’s liberation. Partition triggered a mass exodus: by 1951, the Census of India recorded about 2.5 million people displaced from East Pakistan, overwhelmingly Hindus.[17] The Hindu share of East Bengal’s population fell from 28 percent in the 1941 census to 22 percent in the 1951 census.[18] The exodus did not end with Partition, as East Pakistan continued to be engulfed by waves of communal violence under Pakistani rule. The riots of 1949–50 against Hindus, which began in Khulna and Rajshahi and spread to Dhaka, Barisal, Mymensingh, Sylhet and Chittagong, and in which officials were accused of complicity, reflected the post-Partition reality for Hindus who chose to stay in Pakistan, triggering new waves of mass exodus and a humanitarian crisis that led to the signing of the Nehru–Liaquat Pact on April 8, 1950.[19] The pact, however, failed to work, partly because of changes in Pakistan’s political situation, notably Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination in 1951, and partly because it lacked strong mechanisms to monitor and enforce its terms. Communal violence erupted again in 1964 in response to the Hazratbal incident in Kashmir, leading to massacres of Hindus and yet another wave of exodus.[20] Forced migration continued during the 1971 Liberation War, with nearly 10 million refugees fleeing to India, 93 percent of whom were Hindus according to Indian government figures.[21]
Communal violence alone, however, did not drive the demographic change. Discriminatory property laws made it difficult for Hindu migrants to return to their homeland. The East Bengal (Emergency) Requisition of Property Act of 1948 and the East Bengal Evacuees (Administration of Immovable Property) Act of 1951 treated fleeing Hindus as “evacuees” and gave the government sweeping powers to requisition and take over immovable property, temporarily or permanently, with minimal oversight.[22] The Prevention of Transfer of Property and Removal of Documents and Records Act of 1952 further restricted the transfer of estate property during state acquisition, preventing the disproportionately Hindu zamindar (landowning) class from selling their land.[23] The Enemy Property (Custody and Registration) Order of 1965, issued during the Indo-Pakistani War of that year, allowed the government to take over land owned by Hindus who had moved to India, now designated an enemy state, implicitly associating the Hindu population with Pakistan’s enemy.[24]
After Bangladesh’s liberation, the Hindu population continued to decline because of socio-political, economic, and legal factors, and the discriminatory property laws that survived. Although the enemy property law was formally repealed in 1974, the repealing statute, the Enemy Property (Continuance of Emergency Provisions) (Repeal) Act, 1974, vested “enemy” property in the government, creating what became known as the Vested Property Act.[25] The Act has been used overwhelmingly against Hindus, including those who remained in Bangladesh. According to a 2008 study led by Abul Barkat, Hindus lost about 2.6 million acres of land between 1965 and 2006, affecting some 1.2 million households.[26] The enemy and vested property laws were, therefore, central to the dispossession of Hindus from their ancestral land and to the community’s economic marginalization, adding to the factors behind its stark demographic decline after 1971. The Hindu share of the population fell from 13.54 percent in 1974 to 12.13 percent in 1981, 10.52 percent in 1991, 9.34 percent in 2001, 8.54 percent in 2011 and 7.95 percent in 2022, the most recent census.[27]
Marginalization after 1971
Following liberation, Bangladesh became a secular republic. Its Constitution, approved on November 4, 1972, rested on four founding principles—nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism—intended to make the new country inclusive by eliminating communalism in all its forms and the political use of religion. It guaranteed equality before the law (Article 27), non-discrimination on grounds of religion (Article 28) and freedom of religion (Article 41), although it contained no special provision for minority protection.[28] Notwithstanding these guarantees, Hindus, the country’s largest minority, continued to experience systemic marginalization across legal, social, political and economic spheres.
The Islamization of the Constitution began under President Ziaur Rahman, when a 1977 proclamation removed the word “secularism” from the Constitution and inserted “absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah,” giving it a religious tone.[29] President Hussain Muhammad Ershad went further, making Islam the state religion in 1988 through the Eighth Amendment, which inserted Article 2A.[30] Although the Fifteenth Amendment restored “secularism” in 2011, the Constitution retained Islam as the state religion while promising equal status and equal rights in the practice of other religions.[31] Moreover, secularism is only a fundamental principle of state policy, which under Article 8(2) is not judicially enforceable, exposing a constitutional contradiction that leaves minorities caught between Islamism and secularism.[32] This settlement is again in flux. In January 2025, the Constitution Reform Commission recommended dropping secularism from the fundamental principles, and the July National Charter, approved by referendum in February 2026, recasts them around “equality, human dignity, social justice, and religious freedom and harmony.”[33]
Owing to its structural weaknesses, this design did not protect Hindus from marginalization. Legal subordination and demographic decline are reflected starkly in political representation, where Hindus remain under-represented, leaving them with little independent political voice.[34] Since Bangladesh’s return to parliamentary democracy in 1991, Hindu representation has been sporadic, minimal, and dependent on the whims of ruling parties. Parliament had six Hindu members in 1991, five in 1996, three in 2001 and ten in 2008. The number rose to 14 after 2014 and 17 in both 2018 and 2024, the highest in the country’s history, though still well below the community’s share of the population.[35]
Violence against Hindus
Following Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination in 1975, Bangladesh underwent a long period of military rule that also witnessed a steady rise of the country’s Islamist factions. The constitutional changes of this period, discussed above, moved the state away from its secular principles as military rulers sought legitimacy by accommodating Islamists.[36] From the late 1980s, and especially during the 1990s and 2000s, Bangladesh grappled with religious extremism as militant groups emerged, among them Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B), Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), alongside the pan-Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir, which was banned in 2009.[37] Some of these groups sought a Taliban-style Islamic state, and others campaigned for a caliphate. They opposed Bangladesh’s secular, democratic governance and targeted practices they deemed “un-Islamic,” bringing Hindu religious and cultural traditions, and Hindus themselves, within their purview.[38]
The laying of the foundation stone of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, India, in 1989, perceived by sections of Bangladeshi Muslims as an attack on their religion, led to violence against Hindus in Bangladesh, including arson attacks on Hindu-owned shops and the vandalism of temples in Narsingdi.[39] In October and November 1990, false reports that the Babri Masjid had been demolished sparked fresh attacks on Hindu homes, shops and temples in Dhaka, Chittagong and elsewhere.[40] Contemporary Associated Press reports put the toll at two dead and some 350 injured, and the violence also brought harassment and property encroachment on Hindus across the country.[41] The demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 then triggered another wave of violence in Bangladesh, deepening insecurity among Hindus and contributing to their emigration.[42]
Following the 2001 national election, which brought a change of government, Hindus became a principal target of post-election violence...
Following the 2001 national election, which brought a change of government, Hindus became a principal target of post-election violence, since they are widely seen as an Awami League vote bank. The Shahabuddin Commission, a judicial inquiry commission, submitted a report on this violence in 2011, and the report was published in the Bangladesh Gazette in 2014. The commission received 5,571 complaints and accepted 3,625 of them for the period fromOctober 1, 2001, to December 31, 2002. Of these, it recorded 355 political killings and 3,270 cases of rape, gang rape, assault, robbery, and other serious crimes. Only 221 of the accepted complaints had been registered as police cases; 194 resulted in charge sheets. Among the forms of abuse, the commission listed encroachment on temple property, vandalism of idols and desecration of religious objects, and it found that the religious persecution of minorities was most severe in rural areas of Barisal, Khulna and Chittagong divisions.[43] After this period, the U.S. State Department’s 2004 religious freedom report recorded the killing of 11 members of a Hindu family who were burned to death when arsonists set fire to their home in Banshkhali, Chittagong, in November 2003.[44]
Islamist attacks on cultural festivals date back to the turn of the millennium, most notably the bombing of a Pohela Baishakh (Bengali New Year) celebration at Ramna Batamul in Dhaka on April 14, 2001, which killed ten people.[45] Attacks on Hindus escalated sharply in 2013, after the International Crimes Tribunal sentenced the Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedi to death on February 28. According to Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), 187 Hindu homesteads, 162 businesses and 89 temples were attacked, looted or burned over the year.[46] Militant attacks by Islamist groups also resumed on a large scale, peaking in 2015–16. In 2016 alone, two Hindu priests and a temple worker were killed, along with a Hindu tailor and an ashram worker.[47] The Islamic State claimed responsibility for several of these killings, though the then government denied any IS presence in the country and blamed home-grown militants.[48] Online rumors of blasphemy also triggered large-scale communal mob violence, as in Nasirnagar in October 2016, when 15 temples and more than a hundred homes were attacked over a Facebook post attributed to a Hindu man against whom investigators later found no evidence.[49] Attacks on Durga Puja (a major Hindu holiday), including the vandalism of idols and pandals, became a recurring feature of this period.[50] The most coordinated violence came in October 2021, when a Quran was placed at a puja pandal in Comilla (police later identified the culprit as a Muslim man), setting off violence in districts such as Chandpur, Noakhali and Rangpur.[51] At least seven people were killed, four of them when police opened fire on a mob in Chandpur, and ASK recorded 3,679 attacks on the Hindu community between January 2013 and September 2021.[52]
The July Uprising and the Interim Government: Rising Hindu Vulnerability
The July Uprising of 2024, which ended Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, promised a “new Bangladesh” based on pluralism, justice and democracy. Immediate developments, however, exposed a different reality for Bangladeshi Hindus, who faced mob attacks on their homes, businesses and places of worship on the accusation of being Awami League supporters. Post-uprising Bangladesh thus brought renewed insecurity for the country’s largest religious minority, marked by communal violence, a resurgence of Islamists and an interim government that largely denied that communal violence was a problem.[53]
According to the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC), the country’s main minority-rights body, Bangladesh witnessed 2,010 incidents of communal violence between August 4 and 20, 2024, and a further 132 by the end of that year, raising serious questions about law and order.[54] The violence continued into 2025. The Council recorded 258 incidents in the first half of the year, and 2,442 cumulatively between August 2024 and June 2025.[55] For 2025 as a whole, it reported 522 communal incidents and 66 deaths, followed by 42 incidents, including 11 killings, between January 1-27, 2026.[56] ASK, which counts more narrowly, documented 206 incidents targeting Hindus in 2025, including 64 attacks on idols.[57] In July 2025, a mob vandalized and looted Hindu homes in Aldadpur Balapara village in Gangachara, Rangpur, over an alleged Facebook post. Although a case was filed against some 1,000 to 1,200 unidentified attackers, only five people were initially arrested.[58] In December 2025, Dipu Chandra Das, a Hindu garment worker in Bhaluka, Mymensingh, was beaten to death by a mob over an unsubstantiated blasphemy allegation. Attackers set his body on fire, offering a stark illustration of how Bangladeshi Hindus are targeted through blasphemy rumors.[59] The Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities documented 73 blasphemy-related incidents across 32 districts between January and November 2025.[60]
By reopening political space to Islamists, the interim government further deepened minority vulnerability.
Religious and cultural practices also came under Islamist pressure. Ahead of Durga Puja in 2024, temples and puja committees in Dakop, Khulna, received anonymous letters demanding Tk 5 lakh (about US$4,200) each as the price of a peaceful celebration, a demand for payment in return for “protection” that echoes the logic of jizya.[61] Police recorded 35 untoward incidents during the festival, and a petrol-filled bottle was thrown at a puja mandap in Tantibazar, Old Dhaka.[62] Cultural traditions were also targeted. A festival in honor of the mystic Lalon in Narayanganj was called off in November 2024 after groups calling themselves Tawhidi Janata, (“supporters of monotheism”), together with Hefazat-e-Islam, threatened to “burn everything.” Lalon, Basanta Utsab, and other festivals have since faced similar obstructions.[63]
The central dispute concerned the interim government’s labeling of such incidents as political rather than communal violence. The government led by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus repeatedly dismissed reports of communal violence as “exaggerated,” and its own count for 2025 classified only 71 of 645 incidents involving minorities as communal, a figure the Unity Council rejected.[64] For its part, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) reported that concerns over religious freedom in Bangladesh persisted, with several troubling incidents in 2025.[65] By labeling communal attacks as political, on the assumption that Hindus are Awami League loyalists, the interim government did further harm to Hindus during its year-and-a-half tenure by excusing worsening communal incidents.
By reopening political space to Islamists, the interim government further deepened minority vulnerability. In March 2025, the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir held a public “March for Khilafat” in Dhaka, calling for an Islamic caliphate.[66] In May 2025, Hefazat-e-Islam demanded that Islamic faith be reinforced in the Constitution and pluralism rejected, along with strict punishment for blasphemy.[67] Such groups’ record in Bangladesh gives minorities cause for concern. In March 2021, Hefazat supporters attacked the Hindu village of Noagaon in Shalla, Sunamganj, damaging 89 houses and eight temples. Hefazat has also denounced Pohela Baishakh’s Mangal Shobhajatra procession held on the first day of the Hindu new year as a “Hindu ritual” that is “haram.”[68]
The interim government, established to carry out reforms, set up no reform commission dealing exclusively with minorities. The Unity Council, which had long called for a minority protection act, an anti-discrimination law, a national minority commission and the proper return of vested property, complained that its requests for representation in the reform process were dismissed.[69] The July National Charter, drawn up by the National Consensus Commission with some 30 political parties, proposed recasting the fundamental principles of the state around “equality, human dignity, social justice, and religious freedom and harmony” in place of secularism, without setting out how the reforms would end religion-based discrimination.[70] Meanwhile, the arrest in November 2024, on sedition charges, of the Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das, who had led rallies demanding justice for Hindus facing targeted attacks, legitimized the concerns Hindus had raised since the July Uprising.[71]
The Present Situation
The national election of February 2026 brought the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to power, defeating a Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance. Only two Hindu MPs were elected, both from the BNP, and one of them, Nitai Roy Chowdhury, became Minister of Cultural Affairs.[72] The new government has pledged to protect minorities and to make the country safe for people of all faiths.[73]
Whether Hindus move from protected subjects to equal citizens will depend less on promises than on laws and institutions that make protection a right.
However, the Unity Council recorded 50 incidents in February 2026, the month of the election, including eight murders and a rape, and 133 in the first quarter of the year.[74] In the first half of 2026 it recorded 257 incidents, in which 44 people were killed in 40 incidents, along with five cases of violence against women, 62 attacks on places of worship and 47 attacks on homes and businesses.[75] While overall violence remains far below the 2024 peak, the Council found the pattern of violence largely unchanged from 2025.[76] ASK reported 32 attacks on Hindus between January and August 2026, and the Manabadhikar Sanskriti Foundation (MSF) recorded 10 incidents of idol vandalism in September 2026 alone.[77]
In June 2026, the temple committee in Palashbari, Gaibandha, suspended construction of an 81-foot statue of Ram, citing the need to preserve “communal harmony,” after protests and a 72-hour ultimatum from the local Imam Ulama Parishad.[78] In July 2026, Haridas Chandra Tarani Das, the man behind the proposed statue, was arrested in a money-laundering case. The Unity Council called the arrest “unfortunate and unacceptable,” noting that those accused of spreading communal hatred over the statue had faced no action.[79]
The Unity Council has placed an eight-point charter of demands before the government, including a minority protection act, a national minority commission and a ministry for minorities, to which the government has yet to respond publicly.[80] So far, the BNP government has appointed Bijon Kanti Sarkar as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and ethnic minority affairs, promised heightened security during Durga Puja, extended the holiday to five days, and raised its grant to the Hindu Religious Welfare Trust.[81]
Conclusion
While the formal dhimma system no longer exists, the vulnerable status of Hindus, visible in their demographic decline, legal and economic disadvantage, political marginalization and persistent exposure to communal violence, amounts to conditions that resemble dhimmitude in practice. Across every political transition, from Pakistani rule to the 1971 liberation and now post-uprising Bangladesh, the Hindu minority has faced renewed vulnerability and a political system that treats it largely as a vote bank. With Islamists on the rise, calls to Islamize the Constitution have re-entered political discourse, raising fears of a return of dhimma in law, not just in practice. As the BNP government takes forward constitutional reform, attention will be on whether it honors its pledges of minority protection and equal citizenship. Whether Hindus move from protected subjects to equal citizens will depend less on promises than on laws and institutions that make protection a right.
Notes
[1] Anver M. Emon, Religious Pluralism and Islamic Law: Dhimmīs and Others in the Empire of Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), https://academic.oup.com/book/33037.
[2] Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, trans. David Maisel, Paul Fenton, and David Littman, rev. and enl. English ed. (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985); Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, trans. Miriam Kochan and David Littman (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002), https://search.worldcat.org/title/47054791.
[3] Richard M. Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft067n99v9.
[4] National Assembly of Pakistan, “Parliamentary History,” accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.na.gov.pk/en/content.php?id=75; The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 8th ed., as modified up to May 31, 2018 (Islamabad: National Assembly of Pakistan, 2018), art. 2A and Annex (“The Objectives Resolution”), https://na.gov.pk/uploads/documents/63e602ca09b5d_461.pdf.
[5] The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 8th ed., as modified up to May 31, 2018 (Islamabad: National Assembly of Pakistan, 2018), art. 2A and Annex (“The Objectives Resolution”), https://na.gov.pk/uploads/documents/63e602ca09b5d_461.pdf.
[6] Riaz Ahmad, “Pakistan’s First Constituent Assembly’s Efforts for the Making of Constitution, 1947–1954,” Pakistan Journal of History and Culture 23, no. 1 (2002): 1–37, https://nihcr.edu.pk/Latest_English_Journal/Pjhc%2023-1%202002/1-The%20first%20Constitutional%20Assembly.pdf; ConstitutionNet, “Constitutional History of Pakistan,” International IDEA, accessed October 6, 2026, https://constitutionnet.org/country/pakistan.
[7] National Assembly of Pakistan, “Parliamentary History,” accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.na.gov.pk/en/content.php?id=75; Iqbal Academy Pakistan, “The Constitution of 1956,” accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.allamaiqbal.com/webcont/393/TheConstitutionof1956.html.
[8] ConstitutionNet, “Constitutional History of Pakistan,” International IDEA, accessed October 6, 2026, https://constitutionnet.org/country/pakistan.
[9] National Assembly of Pakistan, “Parliamentary History,” accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.na.gov.pk/en/content.php?id=75.
[10] Peter R. Blood, ed., Pakistan: A Country Study, 6th ed. (Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1995), s.v. “Ayub Khan, 1958–69,” https://countrystudies.us/pakistan/18.htm; National Assembly of Pakistan, “Parliamentary History,” accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.na.gov.pk/en/content.php?id=75.
[11] International Commission of Jurists, Recurrent Exodus of Minorities from East Pakistan and Disturbances in India (Geneva: International Commission of Jurists, 1965), https://www.icj.org/resource/recurrent-exodus-of-minorities-from-east-pakistan-and-disturbances-in-india/.
[12] Shameem Reza, “Chronology of Important Events of Language Movement,” Prothom Alo (English), February 22, 2019, https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/Chronology-of-important-events-of-Language.
[13] Sharmin Joya, “She Went to Pakistan, Sang Rabindra Sangeet on Their National Television,” Daily Star (Dhaka), March 26, 2023, https://www.thedailystar.net/node/3280386.
[14] Probir Kumar Sarker, “Chronicling the Mass Hindu Killings in 1971,” Dhaka Tribune, October 27, 2021, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/318541/chronicling-the-mass-hindu-killings-in-1971.
[15] “Telegram from the Consulate General in Dacca to the Department of State,” April 6, 1971, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. 11, South Asia Crisis, 1971, ed. Louis J. Smith (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2005), doc. 19, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v11/d19.
[16] “Recognizing the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971, H.R. Res. 1430, 117th Cong.” (2022), quoting Blood’s telegram of April 8, 1971, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/1430/text.
[17] Kenneth Hill, William Seltzer, Jennifer Leaning, Saira J. Malik, and Sharon S. Russell, “The Demographic Impact of Partition: Bengal in 1947” (paper presented at the XXV International Population Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, Tours, France, July 2005), table 2, https://ipc2005.popconf.org/papers/52236. The 1951 Census of India recorded about 2.52 million displaced persons from East Pakistan in India’s eastern zone, 2.06 million of them in West Bengal.
[18] Shishir Moral, “Hindus in Bangladesh Decrease by 7.5 Million over 50 Years,” Prothom Alo (English), November 14, 2021, https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/hindus-in-bangladesh-decrease-by-75-million-over-50-years.
[19] Sekhar Bandyopadhyay and Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury, In Search of Space: The Scheduled Caste Movement in West Bengal after Partition, Policies and Practices 59 (Kolkata: Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, 2014), 4, https://mcrg.ac.in/PP59.pdf; Jogendra Nath Mandal to Liaquat Ali Khan, October 8, 1950, reprinted in Shocking Revelations of Pakistan Atrocities on Minorities (America and India Feature and News Service, 1950), South Asian American Digital Archive, https://www.saada.org/item/20141106-3873; Jawaharlal Nehru to Chief Ministers, April 8, 1950, in Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, 2nd ser., vol. 14, pt. 2 (New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund), 445–47, Nehru Archive, accessed October 6, 2026, https://nehruarchive.in/documents/letters-to-chief-ministers-i-8-april-1950-gopnq6.
[20] International Commission of Jurists, Recurrent Exodus of Minorities from East Pakistan and Disturbances in India (Geneva: International Commission of Jurists, 1965), https://www.icj.org/resource/recurrent-exodus-of-minorities-from-east-pakistan-and-disturbances-in-india/.
[21] US General Accounting Office, United States Assistance for Pakistani Refugees in India, Report to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, B-173651 (Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, 1972), 1, 5, https://www.gao.gov/assets/b-173651-096575.pdf. The report cites Government of India figures as of November 15, 1971: about 9.8 million refugees, 93 percent of them Hindus.
[22] Parvez Rahaman, “Jogendra’s Properties in Noakhali: Displacement and the Death of Hope,” Modern Asian Studies 58, no. 6 (2024): 1608–37, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X24000489.
[23] The Prevention of Transfer of Property and Removal of Documents and Records Act, 1952, Laws of Bangladesh, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, https://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/act-details-243.html.
[24] Md. Abdul Hye v. Bangladesh and Others, Writ Petition No. 8932 of 2011, judgment of November 23, 2017, High Court Division, Supreme Court of Bangladesh, reported in 10 SCOB [2018] HCD 163, 163–89, https://supremecourt.gov.bd/resources/bulletin/10_SCOB_HD_12.pdf.
[25] Md. Abdul Hye v. Bangladesh and Others, Writ Petition No. 8932 of 2011, judgment of November 23, 2017, High Court Division, Supreme Court of Bangladesh, reported in 10 SCOB [2018] HCD 163, 163–89, https://supremecourt.gov.bd/resources/bulletin/10_SCOB_HD_12.pdf.
[26] Staff Correspondent, “Hindus Lost 26 Lakh Acres of Land from 1965 to 2006,” Daily Star (Dhaka), May 15, 2008, https://www.thedailystar.net/news-detail-36658 (reporting Abul Barkat et al., Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh: Living with Vested Property, 2008); Minority Rights Group International, “Hindus,” in World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples: Bangladesh, updated July 2018, https://minorityrights.org/communities/hindus/.
[27] Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Population and Housing Census 2022: National Report, vol. 1 (Dhaka: Statistics and Informatics Division, Ministry of Planning, November 2023), “Key Findings of Population and Housing Census (1974–2022),” https://file-khulna.portal.gov.bd/uploads/9445a99d-43fb-41cc-a28d-e2453697db8b//659/50b/1dc/65950b1dca846629329934.pdf.
[28] The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (adopted November 4, 1972), preamble and arts. 2A, 8, 27, 28, 41, Laws of Bangladesh, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/act-367.html.
[29] Md Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan, “The Contested Concept of Secularism and Bangladesh,” American Journal of Comparative Law 69, no. 3 (2021): 399–448, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avab014.
[30] Star Online Report, “Writ Challenging Islam as State Religion Rejected,” Daily Star (Dhaka), March 28, 2016, https://www.thedailystar.net/city/islam-retains-status-state-religion-1200808; Md Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan, “The Contested Concept of Secularism and Bangladesh,” American Journal of Comparative Law 69, no. 3 (2021): 399–448, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avab014.
[31] Star Online Report, “Writ Challenging Islam as State Religion Rejected,” Daily Star (Dhaka), March 28, 2016, https://www.thedailystar.net/city/islam-retains-status-state-religion-1200808; The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (adopted November 4, 1972), preamble and arts. 2A, 8, 27, 28, 41, Laws of Bangladesh, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/act-367.html.
[32] The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (adopted November 4, 1972), preamble and arts. 2A, 8, 27, 28, 41, Laws of Bangladesh, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/act-367.html.
[33] Ali Asif Shawon, “Reform Commissions Suggest Dropping Secularism, Other Major Changes,” Dhaka Tribune, January 15, 2025, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/370929/reform-commissions-suggest-dropping-secularism; Mohiuddin Alamgir, “Groundwork Laid for Sweeping Constitutional Reforms,” Daily Star (Dhaka), October 18, 2025, https://www.thedailystar.net/supplements/july-national-charter/news/groundwork-laid-sweeping-constitutional-reforms-4011941; Shaikh Shahrukh, “EC: BNP Sweeps with 209 Seats, Jamaat Gets 68, NCP 6,” Dhaka Tribune, February 13, 2026, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/election/403276/bnp-sweeps-with-209-seats-jamaat-gets-68-ncp-6.
[34] Minority Rights Group International, “Hindus,” in World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples: Bangladesh, updated July 2018, https://minorityrights.org/communities/hindus/.
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[36] Md Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan, “The Contested Concept of Secularism and Bangladesh,” American Journal of Comparative Law 69, no. 3 (2021): 399–448, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avab014.
[37] Bruce Vaughn, Islamist Extremism in Bangladesh, CRS Report RS22591 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, January 31, 2007), https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/RS/PDF/RS22591/RS22591.3.pdf; Julhas Alam, “Police in Bangladesh Use Batons and Tear Gas to Disperse Rally by Banned Islamist Group,” Associated Press, March 7, 2025, https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2025/03/07/police-in-bangladesh-use-batons-and-tear-gas-to-disperse-rally-by-banned-islamist-group/.
[38] Bruce Vaughn, Islamist Extremism in Bangladesh, CRS Report RS22591 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, January 31, 2007), https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/RS/PDF/RS22591/RS22591.3.pdf.
[39] “Pakistan Protests Indian Temple, Moslems Riot in Bangladesh,” Associated Press, November 11, 1989, https://apnews.com/article/cc650e146f7cc59d755089e6d934648b.
[40] Osman Ghani Mansoor, “Moslems Attack Hindu Temples in Bangladesh,” Associated Press, October 31, 1990, https://apnews.com/article/13fb4612b61af36933facca1c0744af9; Minority Rights Group International, “Hindus,” in World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples: Bangladesh, updated July 2018, https://minorityrights.org/communities/hindus/.
[41] Farid Hossain, “Anti-Hindu Violence in Bangladesh Leaves One Dead,” Associated Press, November 1, 1990, https://apnews.com/article/39fcd0f7225b7925c74c84d948f90d87; Farid Hossain, “Two Killed, 350 Injured in Anti-Hindu Violence,” Associated Press, November 2, 1990, https://apnews.com/article/1dac81dde8b08a09c908adf892f7a420.
[42] “Bangladesh Temples under Renewed Attack,” United Press International, December 8, 1992, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/12/08/Bangladesh-temples-under-renewed-attack/9529723790800/.
[43] Judicial Inquiry Commission on Post-Election Violence (Shahabuddin Commission), Investigation Report, Part 1: Violence after the 8th National Assembly Election, 2001 (submitted April 24, 2011; published in Bangladesh Gazette, extraordinary issue, April 1, 2014), https://www.hrcbm.org/wp-new/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Shahabuddin-Commission-Report-2001-reviewed.pdf.
[44] US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, “Bangladesh,” in International Religious Freedom Report 2004 (Washington, DC: US Department of State, 2004), https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35514.htm.
[45] Rumi Kawser, “Justice Still Elusive 18 Years after Ramna Batamul Bomb Attack,” Dhaka Tribune, April 14, 2019, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/court/174256/justice-still-elusive-18-years-after-ramna-batamul.
[46] Ain o Salish Kendra, “Violence against Religious Minorities: 2013 Overview,” January 8, 2014, https://www.askbd.org/ask/?p=2111.
[47] Kamran Reza Chowdhury, “Bangladesh: Hindu Temple Worker Killed in Suspected Militant Attack,” BenarNews, July 1, 2016, https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/bengali/hindu-attack-07012016143646.html; FE Online Report, “Four JMB Militants to Die for Murder of Hindu Priest in Panchagarh,” Financial Express (Dhaka), March 15, 2020, https://old.thefinancialexpress.com.bd/national/four-jmb-militants-to-die-for-murder-of-hindu-priest-in-panchagarh-1584255715.
[48] Kamran Reza Chowdhury, “Bangladesh: Hindu Temple Worker Killed in Suspected Militant Attack,” BenarNews, July 1, 2016, https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/bengali/hindu-attack-07012016143646.html.
[49] Shahadat Hossain, “4 Years of Nasirnagar Violence: Investigations of 7 Cases Yet to Be Completed,” Prothom Alo (English), October 30, 2020, https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/crime-and-law/4-years-of-nasirnagar-violence-investigations-of-7-cases-yet-to-be-completed.
[50] Ain o Salish Kendra, “Violence against Religious Minorities: 2013 Overview,” January 8, 2014, https://www.askbd.org/ask/?p=2111; Human Rights Watch, “Bangladesh: Deadly Attacks on Hindu Festival,” October 21, 2021, https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/10/21/bangladesh-deadly-attacks-hindu-festival.
[51] Masud Alam, “Who Is Iqbal, the Man behind the Quran Incident That Triggered Violence?,” Dhaka Tribune, October 21, 2021, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/nation/315762/who-is-iqbal-the-man-behind-the-quran-incident.
[52] Human Rights Watch, “Bangladesh: Deadly Attacks on Hindu Festival,” October 21, 2021, https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/10/21/bangladesh-deadly-attacks-hindu-festival.
[53] Al Jazeera and News Agencies, “Bangladesh Police Clash with Protesters as Hindu Leader Detained,” Al Jazeera, November 26, 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/26/bangladesh-police-clash-with-protesters-as-hindu-leader-detained.
[54] Staff Correspondent, “Bangladesh Sees 2,500 Incidents of Communal Violence in 330 Days,” Prothom Alo (English), July 10, 2025, https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/g3cfs04xvc; Salma Akter Sharmin, “BHBC Unity Council Reports 432 Violence against Minority Cases in under a Year,” Dhaka Tribune, July 10, 2025, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/386088/bhbc-unity-council-reports-432-violence-against.
[55] Staff Correspondent, “Bangladesh Sees 2,500 Incidents of Communal Violence in 330 Days,” Prothom Alo (English), July 10, 2025, https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/g3cfs04xvc.
[56] Sushmita Munshi, “522 Communal Attacks in 2025, Not 71, Says Minority Rights Body,” Dhaka Tribune, January 29, 2026, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/402143/522-communal-attacks-in-2025-not-71-says.
[57] Ain o Salish Kendra, “Violence against Religious Minorities, January–December 2025” (Dhaka: Ain o Salish Kendra, n.d.), accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.askbd.org/ask/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Violence-Against-Religious-Minorities-January-December-2025-min.pdf.
[58] United News of Bangladesh, “Five Arrested over Rangpur Violence,” Dhaka Tribune, July 30, 2025, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/nation/387748/five-arrested-over-rangpur-violence; Our Correspondent, Lalmonirhat, “Man Arrested for Inciting Attack on Hindu Homes in Rangpur,” Daily Star (Dhaka), August 3, 2025, https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/crime-justice/news/man-arrested-inciting-attack-hindu-homes-rangpur-3954476.
[59] Tribune Report, “Six More Held over Lynching of Hindu Youth in Mymensingh,” Dhaka Tribune, December 25, 2025, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/nation/399565/six-more-held-over-lynching-of-hindu-youth-in; Indo-Asian News Service, “Rising Threat to Minorities in Bangladesh over False Blasphemy Accusations,” IANS Live, December 20, 2025, https://ianslive.in/rising-threat-to-minorities-in-bangladesh-over-false-blasphemy-accusations--20251220201644.
[60] Indo-Asian News Service, “Rising Threat to Minorities in Bangladesh over False Blasphemy Accusations,” IANS Live, December 20, 2025, https://ianslive.in/rising-threat-to-minorities-in-bangladesh-over-false-blasphemy-accusations--20251220201644.
[61] Business Today Desk, “‘There Is Fear in Our Minds’: Hindu Temples in Bangladesh Get Extortion Threats ahead of Durga Puja,” Business Today, September 25, 2024, https://www.businesstoday.in/amp/india/story/there-is-fear-in-our-minds-hindu-temples-in-bangladesh-get-extortion-threats-ahead-of-durga-puja-447523-2024-09-25.
[62] Press Trust of India, “35 Untoward Incidents Related to Durga Puja in Bangladesh since October 1, 17 Arrested: Police,” Deccan Herald, October 12, 2024, https://deccanherald.com/world/35-untoward-incidents-related-to-durga-puja-in-bangladesh-since-october-1-17-arrested-police-3229694; Staff Correspondent, “‘Crude Bomb’ Thrown at Puja Mandap in Tantibazar, Five Injured with Knife,” Prothom Alo (English), October 12, 2024, https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/city/3m1cdrt69p.
[63] bdnews24.com, “Threat to ‘Burn Everything’ Halts Lalon Mela in Narayanganj,” Financial Express (Dhaka), November 23, 2024, https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/national/threat-to-burn-everything-halts-lalon-mela; Rina Akter Tuli, “Who Gets to Decide What Bangladesh Can Celebrate?,” Dhaka Tribune, August 26, 2026, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/418346/who-gets-to-decide-what-bangladesh-can-celebrate.
[64] Al Jazeera and News Agencies, “Bangladesh Police Clash with Protesters as Hindu Leader Detained,” Al Jazeera, November 26, 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/26/bangladesh-police-clash-with-protesters-as-hindu-leader-detained; Sushmita Munshi, “522 Communal Attacks in 2025, Not 71, Says Minority Rights Body,” Dhaka Tribune, January 29, 2026, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/402143/522-communal-attacks-in-2025-not-71-says.
[65] Diplomatic Correspondent, “Concerns Remain over Religious Freedom in Bangladesh: USCIRF Report,” Prothom Alo (English), March 17, 2026, https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/njhyhwvok5.
[66] Julhas Alam, “Police in Bangladesh Use Batons and Tear Gas to Disperse Rally by Banned Islamist Group,” Associated Press, March 7, 2025, https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2025/03/07/police-in-bangladesh-use-batons-and-tear-gas-to-disperse-rally-by-banned-islamist-group/.
[67] Staff Reporter, “Hefazat’s 12-Point Demand Feature Banning AL, Qadianis,” Jago News 24, May 3, 2025, https://www.jagonews24.com/en/politics/news/82384.
[68] Bari Dhali, “Attack on Sunamganj Hindus: 89 Houses, 8 Temples Damaged,” Dhaka Tribune, March 22, 2021, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/nation/241887/attack-on-sunamganj-hindus-89-houses-8-temples; Focus Bangla, “Hefazat: Mongol Shobhajatra Is Haram,” Dhaka Tribune, April 14, 2018, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/143255/hefazat-mongol-shobhajatra-is-haram.
[69] Salma Akter Sharmin, “BHBC Unity Council Reports 432 Violence against Minority Cases in under a Year,” Dhaka Tribune, July 10, 2025, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/386088/bhbc-unity-council-reports-432-violence-against.
[70] Mohiuddin Alamgir, “Groundwork Laid for Sweeping Constitutional Reforms,” Daily Star (Dhaka), October 18, 2025, https://www.thedailystar.net/supplements/july-national-charter/news/groundwork-laid-sweeping-constitutional-reforms-4011941.
[71] Al Jazeera and News Agencies, “Bangladesh Police Clash with Protesters as Hindu Leader Detained,” Al Jazeera, November 26, 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/26/bangladesh-police-clash-with-protesters-as-hindu-leader-detained.
[72] Press Trust of India, “Hindus among Four from Minority Communities Elected to Bangladesh Parliament,” ETV Bharat, February 16, 2026, https://www.etvbharat.com/en/international/hindus-among-four-from-minority-communities-elected-to-bangladesh-parliament-enn26021600216; Special Correspondent, “Ministers and State Ministers: Who Gets Which Portfolio,” Prothom Alo (English), February 18, 2026, https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/government/g8mziy0c9f.
[73] “Bangladesh Govt Committed to Safe, Peaceful Durga Puja Celebrations, Says Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Shamim,” All India Radio News (New Delhi), September 30, 2026, https://newsonair.gov.in/bangladesh-govt-committed-to-safe-peaceful-durga-puja-celebrations-says-religious-affairs-minister-mohammad-shamim/.
[74] Asian News International, “Bangladesh Minority Group Expresses Concerns over Rise in Communal Violence,” Sentinel (Guwahati), April 10, 2026, https://www.sentinelassam.com/amp/story/more-news/international/bangladesh-minority-group-expresses-concerns-over-rise-in-communal-violence.
[75] Staff Correspondent, “Bangladesh Records 257 Communal Violence Incidents in First Half of 2026,” Prothom Alo (English), July 27, 2026, https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/r67tnv2anc.
[76] Asian News International, “Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council Releases Data on Communal Violence in First Half of 2026,” Tribune (Chandigarh), July 27, 2026, https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/world/bangladesh-hindu-buddhist-christian-unity-council-releases-data-on-communal-violence-in-first-half-of-2026/.
[77] Ain o Salish Kendra, “Violence against Religious Minorities, January–August 2026,” September 8, 2026, https://www.askbd.org/ask/2026/09/08/violence-against-religious-minorities-jan-aug-2026/; Staff Reporter, “24 Deaths in Jail Custody in September, 23 Killed in ‘Mob’: MSF,” Views Bangladesh, September 30, 2026, https://viewsbangladesh.com/24-deaths-in-jail-custody-in-september-23-killed-in-mob-msf/.
[78] Sumon Corraya, “Garibandha: Work on Hindu God Ram Statue Suspended Following Islamic Protests,” AsiaNews, June 13, 2026, https://www.asianews.it/en/south-asia/bangladesh/garibandha-work-on-hindu-god-ram-statue-suspended-following-islamic-protests.
[79] TBS Report, “Man behind Proposed 81-ft Ram Statue in Gaibandha Arrested, Remanded in Tk9cr Money Laundering Case,” Business Standard (Dhaka), July 13, 2026, https://www.tbsnews.net/bangladesh/crime/man-behind-proposed-81-ft-ram-statue-gaibandha-held-tk9cr-money-laundering-case.
[80] Staff Correspondent, “Bangladesh Records 257 Communal Violence Incidents in First Half of 2026,” Prothom Alo (English), July 27, 2026, https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/r67tnv2anc.
[81] Special Correspondent, “Two Special Assistants to Prime Minister Appointed with State Minister Rank,” Prothom Alo (English), April 2, 2026, https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/government/ewxgqsz3ul; “Bangladesh Govt Committed to Safe, Peaceful Durga Puja Celebrations, Says Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Shamim,” All India Radio News (New Delhi), September 30, 2026, https://newsonair.gov.in/bangladesh-govt-committed-to-safe-peaceful-durga-puja-celebrations-says-religious-affairs-minister-mohammad-shamim/; Special Correspondent, “Govt Holiday Extended by a Day, Giving 5-Day Break, PM Also Increases Grants,” Prothom Alo (English), September 29, 2026, https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/6le1o1kxzd.
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