Nafew Sajed Joy
At present, the organs of the state are plagued by the disease of mob culture. Almost every day, across the country, people from various walks of life are falling victim to mob attacks. According to the latest report from the Human Rights Support Society (HRSS), at least 25 people were killed in 38 separate mob lynching incidents in August alone. Many of these cases emerged not from proven crimes but from theft suspicions or vague allegations. If immediate intervention is not taken, the overall human rights situation in Bangladesh will deteriorate further, paving the way for mob violence a normalised substitute for law and justice.
The data paints a disturbing portrait of the nation’s crisis. The HRSS documented 67 incidents of political violence across the country, resulting in four deaths and 514 injuries. Most of these arose from factional clashes within the BNP, though Awami League, Jamaat, and other parties were also implicated. Beyond politics, the report revealed that violence against journalists doubled compared to previous months, with 39 incidents targeting 72 reporters; an alarming trend that further threatens freedom of expression.
Along the India-Bangladesh border, the BSF carried out 11 attacks, killing four, injuring eight, and pushing back 427 people, while the Myanmar frontier exposed civilians to landmines and abductions by the Arakan Army. Inside Bangladesh, the report documented 159 cases of violence against women and girls, including 64 rapes and 18 gang rapes. Additionally, 133 children were abused, 17 of them fatally. Even workplaces are unsafe- 21 workers died in preventable industrial accidents due to unsafe conditions.
Taken together, these figures do not merely describe a series of tragedies. They reveal a systemic collapse of accountability, where state institutions are either paralysed or complicit, and ordinary people take refuge in mob rule. This is how anarchy spreads. Justice is denied, citizens lose faith in the rule of law, and the crowd becomes judge, jury, and executioner.
One recent incident illustrates this descent vividly. On 28 August at the Dhaka Reporters’ Unity, senior citizens of society gathered for a discussion when a group of individuals, styling themselves as ‘warriors of July,’ stormed the venue and assaulted the participants. Regardless of guilt or innocence, institutions exist to investigate and prosecute crimes. Instead, what prevailed was vigilantism masked as heroism. Excessive glorification under such labels only breeds resentment and normalises mob violence as a legitimate form of justice.
Not only are public places confined but it has seeped deep into the country’s most prestigious academic institution- Dhaka University. A student from the 2014 session allegedly attacked his roommate with a tube light, injuring him in a manner initially misreported as stabbing. When police came to arrest the accused, students confined him in his dormitory and then beat him publicly as he was escorted. Videos quickly circulated across social media.
What followed was an alarming display of selective justice. While the accused student has been sent to jail and faces trial, no meaningful action was against those who carried out the mob justice. This imbalance exposes a deeper rot. In today’s Bangladesh, the accused may be prosecuted, but the mob often depart unpunished. Such double standards lay bare the erosion of law and order and the steady decay of moral integrity. For the general public, the message is unmistakable: injustice is now the norm. The image of students, the supposed conscience of the nation, beating their own senior classmate strips away any pretense of educational or moral superiority. Those who committed this barbaric act can no longer be considered students but as terrorists. They are no different from the mob that tortured a mentally ill young man to death inside a Dhaka University dormitory on suspicion of theft.
Why does this mob mentality thrive particularly on campuses? The answer lies in a long-standing climate of unaccountability. Dhaka University’s residential halls have long been politicised, creating enclaves of impunity where certain groups operate beyond the law. Over time, delayed justice or no justice, has convinced students that they must assume the power of judge and executioner themselves. Social media platforms amplify this dangerous mentality: outrage spreads instantly, rumors go unchecked, and crowds are mobilised with digital ‘warrants’ to punish without trial.
Dr. Mustak Ahmed’s study underscores this trend. He identifies the political inflection point of 5 August 2024 as the moment Bangladesh experienced a systemic collapse of the rule of law, fueling mob violence and extrajudicial killings. A convergence of factors, a power vacuum, institutional paralysis, algorithm-driven outrage, and law enforcement complicity, turned violence into a new social norm. More than 120 documented killings in the months that followed illustrate how mobocracy, enhanced by social media algorithms, has begun to supplant state authority itself.
History and international examples provide sobering lessons. In India and Pakistan, mob violence has already metastasised into social disease, where minorities and vulnerable groups live under constant threat of vigilante justice. In the United States, mob violence on campuses has triggered strict administrative responses, including expulsions and criminal prosecutions. The lesson is clear: unchecked mob violence corrodes the rule of law and destroys democratic culture. If Bangladesh, and especially Dhaka University, allows such acts to become normalised, the consequences will be catastrophic.
The way forward requires swift and uncompromising action. The individuals who carried out these acts of mob violence must be identified using CCTV footage, and testimonies. They must face immediate expulsion from the university and handed over to the police. Meanwhile, the accused student must also face trial under the country’s existing laws. Justice must apply equally to both parties. The university administration can no longer afford hesitation; if it fails to act, the relevant ministries must intervene.
The timing could not be more critical. The DUCSU election has already been held, and the results published- an event that rekindled hopes for student politics after years of absence. Yet those very hopes risk being poisoned if mob rule is allowed to fester inside Dhaka University. The mob mentality seen on campus today will inevitably spill into the streets tomorrow. If the country’s highest educational institution cannot uphold justice and discipline within its own walls, it cannot teach the nation the values of democracy, law, and morality. The HRSS has already sounded the alarm: violence, impunity, and mob rule are spreading from campus to country, eroding the very foundations of the state.
If Dhaka University truly wishes to remain the conscience of Bangladesh, it must act decisively. Terrorists masquerading as students must be rooted out. Political stakeholders must commit to restoring accountability. And the government must re-establish the rule of law with urgency. Otherwise, mob culture will no longer be a symptom of our crisis- it will become the system itself.
The writer is a Researcher
