Over the past several days, Bangladesh has been living through a period of deep anxiety and unrest. Streets have been tense, communities fearful, and institutions uncertain of their role. What is unfolding under the Muhammad Yunus-led interim arrangement is not a sudden breakdown, nor an isolated episode of anger. It is part of a longer, troubling pattern that has emerged over the last year, a steady erosion of democratic order through street violence, political manipulation, and institutional silence.

This latest crisis has been triggered by the killing of Osman Hadi, an Islamist agitator and leader of Inquilab Mancha. He was known for openly promoting the slogan “Delhi na Dhaka", a call that told supporters of the 1971 Liberation War that they had no place in Bangladesh. Shot by unidentified assailants in Dhaka on December 12 and later dying in Singapore, his death was quickly transformed into a symbol, while his words and actions were quietly erased from public memory.

What followed was not collective grief, but carefully directed anger.

Under the banner of protest, organised groups set fire to the homes of Awami League ministers and political workers. Media institutions, including Prothom Alo, were attacked for continuing to report independently. In several parts of the country, Hindu families saw their homes vandalised. A 25-year-old man, Dipu Chandra Das, who was a factory worker in Mymensingh city, was killed and his body burned in public, an act meant not only to end a life, but to spread fear through an entire community.

Indian diplomatic premises were also deliberately targeted during the unrest, most notably the Assistant High Commission of India in Chittagong. Beginning on December 17 and continuing through December 18, 2025, extremist groups operating primarily under the banner of “July Oikya" (July Unity) launched coordinated attempts to target Indian diplomatic missions across multiple Bangladeshi cities. The geographical spread and near-simultaneity of these actions point unmistakably to organisation rather than coincidence, and to planned mobilisation rather than spontaneous public outrage. The Indian High Commission in Dhaka, the Assistant High Commissions in Rajshahi and Khulna, and most seriously the Assistant High Commission in Chittagong were all identified as targets, indicating a deliberate effort to internationalise domestic unrest and draw a foreign state into Bangladesh’s internal political turmoil.

Under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, diplomatic and consular premises are inviolable, and the host state bears a clear and non-derogable obligation to protect them from intrusion, damage, or disturbance, irrespective of internal instability. That these attacks occurred without effective prevention, immediate containment, or visible accountability represents a grave failure of state responsibility. Historically, assaults on diplomatic missions have often signalled a deeper erosion of legal order, as they demonstrate that boundaries once regarded as sacrosanct, both domestic and international, are no longer respected. Equally troubling was the silence and delay that marked the state response, fostering the perception of a permissive environment in which such extremist groups believed they could operate without consequence.

Such perceptions embolden further violence, weaken........

© News18