WILLIAM BHARAT

Dipu Chandra Das worked at a factory in Bhaluka, Mymensingh. He was a poor laborer. One day, a Muslim coworker wanted to punish him over some trivial matter, so in the middle of a crowd he announced that Dipu had made derogatory remarks about the Prophet. That was enough. Frenzied followers of the Prophet pounced on Dipu like hyenas and began to tear him apart. Eventually the police rescued him and took him into custody—meaning Dipu was under police protection. Dipu told the police what had happened, stated that he was innocent, that he had made no comment whatsoever about the Prophet, and that it was all a conspiracy by that coworker. The police did not go after the coworker. Many among the police harbor a fondness for jihad. Was it in the excess of this jihadist zeal that they threw Dipu back to those fanatics? Or did jihadist militants shove the police aside and take Dipu out of the station? They held a full-blown celebration—beating Dipu, hanging him, burning him—a jihadist festival. Dipu Chandra Das was the sole breadwinner of his family. With his earnings, his disabled father, mother, wife, and child survived. What will happen to them now? Who will help the relatives? Who will bring the mad murderers to justice? Dipu’s family doesn’t even have the money to flee to India to escape the jihadists’ hands. The poor have no one. They have no country left, not even a religion left.