This is not just a follow-up report on a country spiralling out of control into the abyss of violence. This is a horrifying preview of what the future may bring anywhere in the world when instability allows Islamic fanaticism to wreak havoc through social media. It is a wake-up call for whoever may believe that Islamist extremism can be tamed and brought to reason. It is a harsh warning to those who may not grasp how easy it is for an online platform to turn overnight into a public prosecutor, judge and firing squad. It is a reminder of what happens if laws are not in place – or if a crumbling state fails to enforce them.
History knows the mob’s wrath. From the guillotines of Paris to the witch-pyres of Salem, crowds have long judged with blood. In Bangladesh, since the August 2024 uprising that ousted Sheikh Hasina, a new executioner wields power: The smartphone. Social media, acting as a digital accelerant, have turned rumours into death sentences, livestreamed lynchings and amplified terror, claiming at least 637 lives in the last year. This is no mere crisis. It is a descent into digital barbarism, exposing Bangladesh’s failures and the West’s selective moral sensitivity.
The numbers chill the soul. On August 4 last year, 24 were burned alive at the Zabeer Jashore Hotel. On August 25, 182 perished in flames at Gaji Tyres, Narayanganj, their names erased by censorship. Since last summer, the killings have escalated. In July, Lal Chand Sohag, a Hindu social worker, was lynched outside Mitford Hospital, his death streamed live for the whole nation to see. These are not just murders. They are spectacles, choreographed by viral venom. A single post in Chattogram, falsely accusing a Hindu of desecrating the Quran, left two dead and homes in ashes. The lie was debunked hours later, but the mob, summoned by a click, needed no proof.
Social media is no neutral tool. It can very easily become a weapon, amplifying panic and hatred faster than the truth can catch up. In Bangladesh, where 71 per cent of young people see mob violence as routine, according to the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling (SANEM), platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp are the spark and tinder. A rumour of theft or blasphemy spreads in minutes, summoning crowds to kill. Over 70 per cent of victims, either political opponents, or minorities like Hindus and Ahmadiyya Muslims, are targeted via digital means.
The algorithm rewards rage, not reason, turning suspicion into slaughter. Worse, the violence is broadcasted. Livestreams of lynchings, like Sohag’s, turn murder into macabre entertainment, shared and reshared to terrorise communities. Fear now stalks Bangladesh’s streets: Parents guard their children, shopkeepers only whisper when talking politics. 47 per cent of youth fear that they too will become targets, notes SANEM. Social media, meant to connect, isolates and terrorises. This is not progress but regression, a digital Colosseum where the crowd cheers as blood spills.
Bangladesh’s failures fan the flames. The fall of Hasina’s regime left a void. Police are overstretched, courts paralysed, leaders hiding. The interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, trumpets “zero tolerance” and legal awareness campaigns, yet arrests are rare, convictions rarer. The state, more focused on purging political foes than restoring order, has surrendered justice to the mob. History warns of such collapses. When institutions falter, chaos rules. Bangladeshi courts have now become bystanders as the crowd delivers verdicts.
The West, meanwhile, watches with hypocritical silence. Europe, quick to champion human rights in select cases, ignores Bangladesh’s digital bloodbath. Where are the condemnations for these hundreds of deaths? The EU, it appears, could not care less about Narayanganj’s pyres. This is not an accident but a choice: Some lives, it seems, are worthier than others. Apparently, the contemporary collective West preaches rights but picks its causes. Bangladesh’s dead, burned for a post, do not deserve a statement, a communique, or even a tweet.
History does not spare the negligent. The Enlightenment promised law over chaos and put science to work in pursuit of that cause, yet in 2025 Bangladesh slides toward a dark age where algorithms dictate death. Dhaka must tame this digital beast – fight misinformation, reform the police, empower courts – or the mob will reign. Will this country of 273 millions reclaim justice, or will the crowd, armed with smartphones, write the next chapter in blood? Will Europe and the West realise that in today’s globalised world South Asia does not lie afar, or will they eventually have to face the very patterns they now overlook?
South Asia in deep water as Bangladesh falls for Islamist propaganda