One morning, in the fictional world of Franz Kafka, Josef K. awoke to find himself arrested for a crime he did not commit, by an organisation he did not understand. "Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K.," the novel begins; "he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested." On the night of December 18, 2025, in the very real district of Bhaluka in Mymensingh, a garment worker named Dipu Chandra Das was thrust into a similarly irrational and lethal machinery. While Josef K.'s journey ended in a quiet quarry, Dipu's ended on a national highway median, amid a spectacle of fire and fury. His death exposes a haunting reality: when the rule of law vanishes and impunity prevails, the world becomes a stage where innocence is no defence against a predetermined verdict.
Caste, class, and the making of a target
Throughout The Trial, K. is never informed of his specific crime. The horror of Dipu Das's death began with an identical void of evidence. A mob accused him of making derogatory remarks about Islam on Facebook, but the claim quickly collapsed under scrutiny. The Company Commander of RAB-14 in Mymensingh later confirmed that "no evidence was found" on the deceased's social media. Furthermore, other workers and local people could not point to any specific activity that justified the mob's "righteous" fury. The "crime" was a phantom — a rumour that metamorphosed into a death sentence before a single fact could be verified.
But beneath the surface of religious fervour lay a more calculated motive. Dipu was a member of the Rabidas community, a Dalit group traditionally engaged in leatherwork and historically associated with the so-called 'Chamar' caste. In Bangladesh, the Rabidas face crushing social stigma. According to Shipon Kumar Rabidas, General Secretary of the Bangladesh Dalit and Excluded Rights Movement (BDERM), the killing was driven by a mix of workplace rivalry and entrenched caste bias.
"Our fact-finding suggests that both professional jealousy and deep-seated caste prejudice played a role," he said. "Dipu was degree-passed and had been nominated for a supervisor position at the factory. This reportedly triggered resentment among three co-workers who had allegedly paid bribes for the same post and could not tolerate a person from a so-called 'lower' caste rising to such a position."
Unable to compete on merit, they weaponised the most volatile tool available in the new Bangladesh: an accusation of blasphemy. The factory, rather than acting as a guardian, "forcibly pushed out" Dipu to appease the gathering crowd. It was an act of institutional betrayal that mirrored Kafka's Before the Law — closing the door of safety on a man whose life depended on it.
The spectacle of violence and dissecting the mob
What remains most baffling is how the murder morphed into a public performance — filmed, shared on social media, and reduced to spectacle. Dipu was stripped, beaten, hung from a tree, and set on fire. Criminologists point to this as a breakdown of social order. Md Rezaul Karim Shohag, an Assistant Professor of Criminology at Dhaka University, notes that this phenomenon is fuelled by a failure of deterrence.
He draws on the 'Broken Windows Theory' to explain that visible signs of disorder and unpunished minor crimes lead to more serious offences. "When people see that crimes are committed without legal consequences, they feel empowered to act on personal grievances or take advantage of the chaos." In Bangladesh, "likely offenders" are often waiting for an opportunity, and the current absence of legal guardianship — that is, effective law enforcement — allows them to act on their targets, according to him.
Each lynching is followed by a familiar promise from the government: that it will "take responsibility for the family." The implication is unsettling. Protection appears to arrive only after death. If the state acknowledges its duty only after a citizen is killed, what does that say about the rule of law? What does it reveal about a system that repeatedly fails to intervene, deter, or deliver justice?
The Bhaluka incident is a textbook case of how rumour is weaponised. Criminologists identify three types of offenders in such lynchings: seasonal, habitual, and professional. In Dipu's case, "professional" offenders likely orchestrated the rumour to settle a workplace grudge, while "habitual" and "seasonal" offenders joined the fray, shielded by the anonymity of the crowd.
Who bears responsibility — and what must change
Who should bear responsibility for Dipu Das's killing? The men who took part in the lynching? The factory authorities who pushed him out to face the mob? Or a state whose indifference and delayed responses have allowed mob violence to flourish?
Each lynching is followed by a familiar promise from the government: that it will "take responsibility for the family." The implication is unsettling. Protection appears to arrive only after death. If the state acknowledges its duty only after a citizen is killed, what does that say about the rule of law? What does it reveal about a system that repeatedly fails to intervene, deter, or deliver justice?
Despite a string of mob attacks across the country this year, accountability remains elusive. Arrests are announced, inquiries promised, but convictions are rare and deterrence weaker still. Who are these people being arrested? How many are actually prosecuted? And have we seen even a single instance of exemplary punishment that might signal the true cost of mob violence?
Breaking this cycle requires more than ritual condemnation. "Law enforcement must intervene early and decisively, ensuring that accusations — however inflammatory — are handled strictly through legal channels," said Md Rezaul Karim Shohag. "At the same time, political actors must abandon selective outrage and close ranks across ideological lines to reject mob violence unequivocally." Without institutional unity and credible punishment, awareness campaigns alone will achieve little.
The murder of Dipu Das follows a blood-stained trail of names we are already beginning to forget: Tofazzal, Ruplal Rabidas, or the man in Bhola whose eyes were gouged out and thumb severed on mere suspicion of theft. Each time, the shock fades. Each time, impunity survives.
If the "new Bangladesh" is to be more than a rhetorical reset, it must confront situations in which mobs replace courts and rumours substitute for evidence. Bob Dylan once asked, "How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?" In Bangladesh, the answer is not blowing in the wind — it is written in case files that go nowhere, trials that never begin, and a silence screaming louder at our collective conscience with every life erased.
Miftahul Jannat is a journalist at The Daily Star. She can be reached at: [email protected]
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