Frustrated with their government and inflamed by the death of an activist, mobs turn their anger on the press.
The burnt exterior of Prothom Alo’s office on 20 December 2025. (Photo by Sakib Howlader courtesy of Wikimedia)
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In the predawn darkness of 19 December 2025, smoke rose above the newsroom district of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Thus, curling into the winter sky. Frightened journalists scrambled for exits. Inside the offices of Prothom Alo and The Daily Star, Bangladesh’s two most influential newspapers, desks lay overturned. And computers smashed and broadcast equipment reduced to ash.
Protesters — many masked, some carrying iron rods — had stormed the buildings. Setting parts of them on fire and trapping staff inside.
Then, the Human Rights Support Society, a national, nonprofit human rights organization in Dhaka, reports that 197 people died in mob attacks between January and December 2025.
“They weren’t just angry at the government. They were angry at us for telling the story.”
Thus, the attacks marked a dramatic escalation in Bangladesh’s widening political unrest, triggered by the death of Sharif Osman Hadi, a 32-year-old youth leader and outspoken critic of India.
