In October 2025, Bangladesh’s streets pulse with the fury of Hefazat-e-Islam, as thousands rally in Dhaka and Chattogram, demanding a ban on the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), labelled a “Hindutva extremist" threat.

This grand march, the most formidable since their 2013 Dhaka siege, signals a dangerous resurgence of radical Islamist power under Muhammad Yunus’s interim government.

The arrest of ISKCON leader Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari in November 2024 on sedition charges—stemming from a fabricated flag desecration claim during a minority rights rally—ignited this firestorm.

Das’s detention, coupled with over 3,600 documented attacks on Hindu homes, temples, and businesses since August 2024, reveals a calculated assault on Bangladesh’s Hindu minority. Hefazat’s chants of “Catch one ISKCON, then slaughter" expose their visceral anti-Hindu animus, threatening to unravel decades of fragile coexistence. Yunus’s leniency toward this Deobandi juggernaut, notorious for anti-secular crusades, marks a stark departure from Sheikh Hasina’s containment policies.

As Hefazat’s influence swells, unchecked by a wavering regime, Bangladesh teeters toward a theocratic abyss. West Bengal’s BJP has sounded alarms, but India’s Centre must also heed this crisis, lest South Asia’s secular fabric fray further, endangering millions.

Hefazat-e-Islam, born in 2010 from Chittagong’s qawmi madrasas, is no mere religious coalition—it’s a Deobandi behemoth with a track record of anti-Hindu violence and ideological warfare.

Rooted in a puritanical vision opposing secularism, women’s rights, and minority freedoms, it rose to infamy by targeting the 2013 Shahbag movement’s call for justice against 1971 war criminals. Its........

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