Murder of Biswajit Das

Biswajit Das was a 24-year-old tailor from Dhaka, Bangladesh, born to Ananta Chandra Das and Kalpana Rani Das. He owned a tailoring shop in Shankhari Bazaar in Old Dhaka and was described as peaceful and uninvolved in politics or demonstrations.

On 9 December 2012, the opposition 18 Party Alliance called for a nationwide anti-government road blockade. Around 9:00 am, a group of opposition lawyers marched in a procession from the Old Dhaka Judge Court in support of the blockade. As the procession approached Victoria Park, one or more small explosives detonated near an anti-blockade demonstration organized by activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of the ruling Awami League, drawn from Jagannath University and Kabi Nazrul Government College. The BCL activists attacked the protesting lawyers, causing the crowd to scatter. Das, a bystander on his way to his shop, ran for safety.

Das initially took shelter on the second floor of a nearby dental clinic. The attackers mistook him for an opposition supporter and chased him from near Bahadur Shah Park into a nearby building, where they assaulted him with machetes, iron bars, and hockey sticks, including strikes with an iron rod. Severely injured, Das tried repeatedly to flee to other buildings, but his attackers pursued and continued the assault until he collapsed. Passersby who attempted to take him to National Hospital were blocked by the attackers. Das managed to move again but fell at Shankhari Bazaar Road; a rickshaw-puller ultimately transported him to Mitford Hospital, where he died of his injuries.

The daytime attack was captured live on television and generated national outrage in Bangladesh. Within days, Jagannath University expelled three students and revoked the certificates of two others in connection with the killing; the following week it expelled four more students.

By 25 December 2012, seven suspects were in police custody. An eighth suspect was arrested on 26 May 2013. These eight were among twenty-one people indicted on 2 June 2013 for Das's murder, all identified as activists of the Jagannath University unit of the BCL. The trial began on 14 July 2013, and on 18 December 2013 all twenty-one defendants were found guilty. Eight were sentenced to death and thirteen to life imprisonment. Thirteen of the convicted, including two sentenced to death, were tried in absentia and, as of August 2017, had not been apprehended.

The killing drew international attention: the U.S. Department of State's 2012 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices cited Das's murder as an example of political violence associated with general strikes in Bangladesh.