Bangladesh Christians protest in Dhaka after bomb attacks on churches, demand arrests and security ahead of Christmas and 2026 elections amid rising minority fears.
Newsroom (19/11/2025 Gaudium Press ) Hundreds of Christians staged a human chain protest in central Dhaka on Monday, calling for the immediate arrest of perpetrators behind a series of bomb attacks on Catholic churches and schools and warning that rising insecurity threatens the minority community as Christmas approaches and national elections loom.
Approximately 100 demonstrators gathered outside the National Press Club on November 18, holding banners and voicing alarm over three separate crude-bomb incidents in the capital since early October. Church leaders described the attacks as deliberate attempts to intimidate the country’s roughly 500,000 Christians, who have historically lived in relative peace in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million.
“A vested quarter may be working behind the attacks… to destabilize the country ahead of the elections,” said John Gomes, president of the Bangladesh Christian Forum and a senior member of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Bangladesh is scheduled to hold general elections in February 2026, replacing the interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus that assumed power in August 2024 after former prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country amid mass protests.
Protest organizers accused authorities of inaction. “We do not know if the police have even identified the culprits,” said Nirmol Rozario, president of the Bangladesh Christian Association. The most recent attack occurred on November 7, when two homemade bombs were hurled at the gate of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Dhaka just hours before a major celebration expected to draw 600 worshippers. The following day, similar devices were thrown at St. Joseph’s Higher Secondary School and College. On October 8, Holy Rosary Church in Tejgaon—one of the country’s oldest Catholic churches—was targeted in an identical manner.
St. Mary’s parish priest Father Albert Thomas Rozario told reporters the incidents had left parishioners shaken. “Why should we be targets? It is not fathomable,” he said, urging swift arrests and exemplary punishment.
Speakers at the protest linked the bombings to broader efforts by “defeated forces” to attract international condemnation by attacking minorities. “We are a small community. Our institutions are among the best,” said Swapan Halder, vice president of the Bangladesh Christian Forum. “Please allow us to continue contributing to a prosperous and peaceful Bangladesh.”
The demonstrations come against a backdrop of heightened violence toward religious minorities since Hasina’s ouster. The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council documented 2,624 attacks on minority homes, businesses, and places of worship—predominantly targeting Hindus—between August 5, 2024, and October 31, 2025. Some Catholic educational institutions have also faced hostility from anti-Hasina student activists who accused certain teachers of supporting the former regime.
The interim government has maintained that most post-August violence has been political rather than communal and insists perpetrators are being brought to justice. Despite deploying extra security in Dhaka ahead of Sunday’s International Crimes Tribunal verdict—which sentenced Hasina and her former home minister to death in absentia for crimes against humanity—several crude bombs exploded and vehicles were torched in the capital in the days leading up to the ruling.
Christian leaders on Monday demanded guaranteed protection for churches and institutions during the upcoming Christmas season and the February elections, warning that continued impunity risks further eroding public confidence in the interim administration’s ability to maintain order.
-Raju Hasmukh with files from Uca News
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