Dipu’s ashes on Dhaka-Mymensingh highway are gone. The stain on our souls remains.

It has been a week since the horrific killing in Bhaluka. The ashes on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway are gone. But the silence left behind feels heavier than the noise of the mob.

I must confess, I could not watch the whole video. To see a human being being burnt on a phone screen felt wrong, like I am part of the cruelty just by watching. But closing our eyes does not change the truth.

For a week now, we have lived with the knowledge that Dipu Chandra Das, a 27-year-old, was treated as something less than human. The details show this was not just a sudden mob attack but a murder.

We now know the exact mechanics. The mob had in fact staged an execution. Video footage confirms he was strung up on a tree on the highway median, displayed like a trophy. They set him on fire while he dangled.

But the true horror is not just the fire. Before Dipu was taken by the mob, the factory authorities reportedly forced him to resign.

Think about that scene. Authorities print a resignation letter inside the factory while outside, a mob screams for blood. They prioritised severing corporate liability over saving a human life.

The police have arrested the factory's floor in-charge and quality in-charge. But this raises a bigger question about our values. When a factory gate is opened to push a worker into the hands of a mob just to save the building's glass windows, can we call ourselves human beings?

We cannot see Bhaluka as a one-off event. It is part of a pattern of mob justice we have seen since July. This kind of brutality is becoming a stain on our new beginning.

We saw it unfold on university campuses and inside police stations. Sometimes the victims were lucky enough to be saved by army and police. But Dipu Chandra Das was not lucky. On December 18 in Bhaluka, there was no shield.

And why did he have to die such a violent death? The Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) has confirmed the blasphemy claim is "very vague". There are no actual witnesses. A father of an 18-month-old daughter was burned based on rumour. A lie was enough to turn a crowd of humans into mindless killers.

We can arrest the seven men. We can arrest the managers. But we cannot arrest the rot that allowed them to exist.

We talk endlessly about building a "new Bangladesh". We talk about reforms, rights, and justice. But what is the value of "liberty" if it includes the liberty to kill a man with impunity? Is the new Bangladesh going to be built on the ashes of men like Dipu?

Dipu's ashes have settled and we might have washed off the soot. But the permanent stain is on all of us.