‘No Second-Class Citizen’: Bangladesh Jamaat Leader Amid Minority Attacks, Says India Ties a ‘Priority’

Jamaat-e-Islami party leader, Shafiqur Rahman, who is also the chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, on Wednesday said that all people in Bangladesh were first-class citizens. The statements coincide with the fact that the last few months were marked with a rise in the number of attacks committed against minority Hindus.

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“Regardless of their religion, they are all Bangladeshi citizens. There are no second-class citizens in my country. I do not consider anyone a minority. We are all Bangladeshis, and everyone is a first-class citizen. We do not endorse divisions based on minority or majority," Rahman said.

Jamaat leader added that India will always be a priority on the relations that Bangladesh has with India since it is the closest neighbour. It was also in response to the media questions that he made the comments and when one of them questioned him whether he sees himself as the prime minister of Bangladesh, Rahman replied, I know not and raised his hands up.

“It will be decided by the total environment of the country. There are so many stakeholders. It will be immature to answer the question on free and fair elections today,” he said when he was asked about his opinion on the elections being held in Bangladesh.

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Hindus are being attacked in Bangladesh

After the murder of a student leader, Osman Hadi in Bangladesh in December 2025, a series of incidents of assaults on Hindu minorities was registered. It began with a garment factory worker, Dipu Chandra Das, who, according to reports, was beaten and burnt by a mob in Bhaluka, Mymensingh on alleged blasphemy. The death was very much criticized and the interim government under the leadership of Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus declared, No place of such violence in the new Bangladesh. The criminals involved in this atrocious act will not escape.

On January 6, another Hindu man, a grocery shopkeeper was reportedly killed after he was attacked with sharp weapons in Narsingdi, a suburb of Dhaka, in Bangladesh.

A Hindu businessman was on Monday shot to death in Mymensingh, just before the most crucial national elections. The victim was a 62-year-old Susen Chandra Sarkar, a rice trader. He was hacked to pieces inside his shop and the killers shut the shutters and ran away with Sarkar, bdnews 24 quoted the chief (OC) of Trishal Police Station Muhammad Firoz Hossain.

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