At present, the organs of the state in Bangladesh are plagued by the disease of mob culture. Almost every day, in different corners of the country, people from various walks of life are falling victim to mob attacks. According to the latest report from the Human Rights Support Society (HRSS), at least 25 people were killed in 38 separate mob lynching incidents in August alone. Many of these cases did not stem from proven crimes but from mere suspicions— of theft, of vague allegations, or simple rumour. The report warns that if immediate intervention is not taken, Bangladesh’s overall human rights situation will deteriorate further, paving the way for mob violence to become a normalized substitute for law and justice.
The statistics are sobering. The HRSS documented 67 incidents of political violence, leading to four deaths and 514 injuries. Most of these arose from factional clashes within the BNP, though the Awami League, Jamaat Islami, and other parties were also implicated. Beyond politics, violence against journalists doubled compared to previous months, with 39 incidents targeting 72 reporters— an alarming trend that threatens freedom of expression itself. Along the India-Bangladesh border, the BSF carried out 11 attacks, killing four, injuring eight, and pushing back 427 people, while the Myanmar frontier exposed civilians to landmines and abductions by the Arakan Army.
Inside Bangladesh, the report recorded 159 cases of violence against women and girls, including 64 rapes and 18 gang rapes, as well as 133 cases of child abuse— 17 of them fatal. Even workplaces are unsafe: 21 workers died in preventable industrial accidents due to unsafe conditions.
Taken together, these figures are not a series of isolated tragedies; they expose a systemic collapse of accountability. State institutions are either paralyzed or complicit, and citizens increasingly take refuge in mob justice. This is how anarchy spreads: when justice is denied, people lose faith in the rule of law, and the crowd becomes judge, jury, and executioner.
One incident illustrates this descent vividly. On 28 August, at the Dhaka Reporters’ Unity, senior citizens had gathered for a discussion when a group of individuals, styling themselves as “warriors of July,” stormed the venue and physically assaulted participants. Regardless of guilt or innocence, institutions exist to investigate and prosecute crimes. But instead of due process, what prevailed was vigilantism masquerading as heroism. Excessive glorification under such labels only breeds resentment and normalizes mob violence as a legitimate form of justice.
Even Dhaka University, Bangladesh’s most prestigious academic institution, is not immune. In late August, a student from the 2014 session allegedly attacked his roommate. When police came to arrest him, students confined him in his dormitory and then beat him publicly as he was escorted away. Videos of the assault quickly spread across social media.
The HRSS has already sounded the alarm: violence, impunity, and mob rule are spreading from campus to country, eroding the very foundations of the state. If Bangladesh truly wishes to remain a democracy, then Dhaka University must lead by example. Those masquerading as students but acting as terrorists must be rooted out. Political stakeholders must restore accountability. And the government must urgently re-establish the rule of law.
What followed was an alarming display of selective justice. While the accused student was jailed and faces trial, no meaningful action was taken against those who carried out mob violence. This imbalance exposes a deeper rot: in today’s Bangladesh, the accused may be prosecuted, but the mob often walks free. For the public, the message is unmistakable—mob justice is now the norm. The image of students, the supposed conscience of the nation, beating their own classmate strips away any pretence of moral superiority. Such acts reduce students to nothing more than terrorists in uniform, no different from the mob that tortured a mentally ill man to death in a university dormitory last year on suspicion of theft.
This is why we must resist sanitizing such acts under the neutral label of “mob culture.” These are not cultural phenomena— they are terrorist acts. And those who commit them must be uprooted from universities and society before their roots grow deeper.
Why does mob mentality thrive, particularly on campuses? The answer lies in decades of impunity. Dhaka University’s residential halls have long been politicized, creating enclaves of lawlessness where certain groups operate beyond accountability. Over time, delayed justice— or no justice at all— has convinced students that they must assume the power of judge and executioner themselves. Social media only accelerates this: outrage spreads instantly, rumours remain unchecked, and crowds are mobilized with digital “warrants” to punish without trial.
Researcher D. Mustak Ahmed identifies 5 August 2024 as a political inflection point: the moment Bangladesh experienced a systemic collapse of the rule of law. A convergence of factors— power vacuum, institutional paralysis, algorithm-driven outrage, and law enforcement complicity— turned violence into a social norm. More than 120 documented killings in the months that followed illustrate how mobocracy, enhanced by social media algorithms, has begun to supplant state authority itself.
History offers sobering lessons. In India and Pakistan, mob violence has metastasized into a social disease, where minorities and vulnerable groups live under perpetual threat of vigilante justice. In the USA, mob attacks on campuses have triggered strict administrative responses, including expulsions and prosecutions. The lesson is clear: unchecked mob violence corrodes democracy itself.
The way forward for Bangladesh requires swift, uncompromising action. Perpetrators of mob violence must be identified using CCTV, digital evidence, and eyewitness testimony. They must face immediate expulsion from universities and be handed over to police. At the same time, the accused must also face trial under existing law. Justice must apply equally— both to the accused and to the mob.
The timing is critical. The recently held DUCSU election rekindled hopes for student politics after years of absence. But those hopes will be poisoned if mob rule festers inside Dhaka University. What begins on campus will inevitably spill onto the streets. If the country’s premier university cannot uphold justice within its own walls, how can it teach the nation the values of democracy, law, and morality?
The HRSS has already sounded the alarm: violence, impunity, and mob rule are spreading from campus to country, eroding the very foundations of the state. If Bangladesh truly wishes to remain a democracy, then Dhaka University must lead by example. Those masquerading as students but acting as terrorists must be rooted out. Political stakeholders must restore accountability. And the government must urgently re-establish the rule of law.
Otherwise, mob culture will no longer be a symptom of Bangladesh’s crisis— it will become the system itself.
